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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.
THE STORY OF
SOMER VILLE
By M. A. HALEY
BOSTON
THE WRITER PUBLISHING COMPANY
146 Franklin Street
1903
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Copyright, igo^, by
The Writer Publishing Company
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Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co,
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
PEEFACE
The Story of Somerville is not intended
to be a comprehensive or a detailed history of
Somerville. It is composed of a few facts and
incidents, written with affectionate interest, in
the hope that those who read it may love our
city, and feel a just pride in its past and pres-
ent, and bright anticipations for its future.
Thanks are due to Mr. Charles D. Elliot for
historical data and revisions ; to Mr. Charles C.
Farrington for facts and helpful suggestions;
to Mr. William H. Hills for valuable assistance
in literary methods ; to Mr. William E. Brig-
ham for an account of the Brigham family, and
to the Somerville Journal for the use of cuts
for illustration.
The authorities consulted in this work are:
Drake's " Old Landmarks of Middlesex
County," Drake's '^ History of Middlesex
VI PREFACE
County/' Frothingliam's '^ History of Charles-
town," ^' The Memorial History of Boston,'^
" Somerville Past and Present/' Potter's '^ His-
tory of ISTarragansett," and the Reports of the
School Committee, from 1812 to the present
time. M. A. H.
June, 1903.
CONTENTS
I. The Beginning .
II. Early Settlers .
III. The Hills of Somerville
IV. Early Customs .
V. The Powder House .
VI. Trouble with England .
VII. Old Homesteads
VIII. Concord and Lexington .
IX. Bunker Hill
X. Revolutionary Fortifications
XL The Streets
XIL The Burning of the Convent
XIII. The Schools
XIV. Separation from Charlestown
XV. Companies in the Civil War
XVI. The Railroads .
XVII. Libraries ....
XVIII. The City Charter .
XIX. The New Charter .
XX. The Industries of Somervill
XXI. Eminent Residents .
XXII. The Churches .
XXIII. Newspapers
XXIV. The Historical Society .
XXV. Great Storms .
References ....
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121
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137
149
151
152
156
The Story of Somerville
THE BEGII^mN^G
ISToT many years ago a queer little girl lived
in Boston, and like all Boston girls she liked the
study of history. Her teachers gave her the
history of the United States. After she read
it she said : ^' This is not the beginning." Then
they gave her English history. When she fin-
ished that she said : '' This is not the begin-
ning." ^^ Well, then you must go back to the
Garden of Eden."
In our story of Somerville we shall go back
farther than the Garden of Eden, back to the
time when the earth was too cold to have a
1
2 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
garden. There was an age when " the earth
was without form and void." The surface
gradually hardened, and after centuries a coat
of ice covered the greater part of it. The same
little girl one day made a visit to Tufts Col-
lege and there she saw a large flat stone covered
with fine parallel lines. She asked how the
stone happened to be marked in that peculiar
way, and one of the professors told her that the
scratches were made by the stones embedded in
a slowly moving ice-river coming from the Arc-
tic regions. After hundreds of years the ice
melted, and left these stones all over the coun-
try. It was a long time before the. ice-cap
melted, and the climate slowly changed, and
the land on which we now live became suitable
for the habitation of man.
We think different races lived here, but we
know very little about any of them, except the
Indians.
" The English nation by right of prior dis-
covery acquired possession of a large extent of
land in N'orth America. The Government gave
this land to those of its citizens who were ven-
THE BEGINNING 3
turous enough to undertake the settlement of
an almost unexplored wilderness. Priority of
discovery gave them no right over the inde-
pendent natives, or to the soil until they had
fairly acquired it of its possessors." ^
In April, 1606, King James I. divided the
country in America, claimed by England, into
two portions. The south half he allotted to a
London company, the north to a company estab-
lished at Plymouth, in the west of England,
and called, in 1620, the Council of Plymouth.
The north part, as regranted in 1620, included
the land between 40° — 48°, north latitude, and
from ocean to ocean.
In 1614, John Smith sailed up the Charles
River. He saw about three thousand straight-
haired, copper-colored Indians, called Aber-
ginians. These Indians called their homes
Mishawum. Their chief business was war, but
the E'ew England Indians were civilized
enough to plant corn-fields and build villages.
" These villages could be built in a day and
removed in an hour." ^
Captain Smith made a map of the neighbor-
4 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
hoad, and the Prince of Wales, afterward
Charles I. of England, looked over this map
and gave English names to many points on
the New England coast. " Only three of his
names have held their original places on our
shore. They are Plymouth, Cape Ann, and
Charles Kiver." ^
Smith's map was the first on which the name
of 'New England appeared.
In March, 1628, the Plymouth Council gave
a grant of land, including the territory of
Somerville, to the Massachusetts Bay Company.
In the same year a party of settlers from
Salem came to a place, on the north side of the
Charles River, full of Indians. They settled
here, and built several houses, one of which was
the Great House. Others soon followed. They
called the place Charlestown, from the river.
Charlestown included the peninsula, the isth-
mus, and the mainland beyond.
In the early records the peninsula is men-
tioned as the ^' N"eck," and the mainland as
" Without the Neck."
" In the following year a hundred settlers
THE BEGINNINO
began to build a town. Sagamore, the good and
gentle Indian, gave them his free consent to
form a settlement." *
"The two Indian nations that owned this
land were the Massachusetts and the Paw-
tuckets. The great sachem of the Pawtuckets
was Nanepashemet, or the New Moon. He was
killed in 1619, on the banks of the Mystic River,
by the Tarrantines, who were the enemies of
the Massachusetts Indians. Squa-Sachem, his
widow, continued the government. She afterward
married Webcowit, the priest of the tribe
In 1639, Squaw-Sachem and Webcowit deeded
to Charlestown the territory now called Somei-
ville, for twenty-one coats, three bushels of corn
and nineteen fathoms of wampum. This deed
is recorded in the Middlesex records and in the
town records.
In buying land in those times, according
to an old English custom, the owner and the
purchaser met upon the ground, and an actual
bit of turf and a twig from a tree were given
to the purchasers, in token that the purchase
was complete. Sales "by turf and by twig
6 THE STORY OF SOMEEVILLE
were common in those days, and Somerville
was perhaps bought with this form.
" Wampum is the kind of money that the
Indians used in trading with the whites and
with each other. This money was made from
the purple and white parts of the quahaug shell ;
round, about a sixteenth of an inch thick, and
a quarter of an inch in diameter, with a hole
in the middle for stringing on strings of bark
or hemp, the purple and white alternating on
the string. The purple was of double the value
of the white, and the whole was valued at five
shillings per fathom." ^ The colored pieces
were sometimes taken from the periwinkle.
Strings of this wampum may be seen in Pil-
grim Hall in Plymouth.
A fathom is six feet in length.
Among the early visitors to Somerville was
Miles Standish.
" The Memorial History of Boston " says :
" On the afternoon of Wednesday, the twenty-
ninth of September, 1621, a large open sail-
boat, or shallop, as it was then called, entered
Boston Harbor, coming up along the shore from
THE BEGINNING 7
the direction of Plymouth. In it were thirteen
men, — ten Europeans, with three savages act-
ing as their guides. The whole party was under
the immediate command of Captain Miles
Standish, and their purpose was to explore the
country in and about Massachusetts Bay. Early
the next morning the party made ready to
extend their explorations to the mainland. The
Sachem Obbatinewat then undertook to guide
the party to Squaw Sachem, who lived some-
where on the Mystic. The party did not reach
her home. They landed and explored the
country in the neighborhood of Medford, found
ISTanepashemet's deserted wigwam, and a pali-
sade enclosure within which he was buried, and
bought some skins from some Indian women,
but were obliged to return without having made
a treaty with any one save Obbatinewat, who
was equally afraid of the Squaw Sachem and
the Tarrantines.''
II
EAELY SETTLERS
Among the early settlers of our town were
John Woolrich, — an Indian trader who built
a house and fenced in a small portion of land
about a mile and a half from Charlestown
Neck, probably in the vicinity of Dane Street,
— Richard Palsgrave, the first physician in
Charlestown, and Edward Jones.
Rev. Abner Morse, in his ^^ Brigham
Genealogy,'' claims Somerville as the residence
of Thomas Brigham, the Puritan. He says:
^' In 1648, there were laid out to him seventy -
two acres ^ on the rocks ' upon the Charlestown
line. In 1648, he bought of William Hamlet
ten acres in Fresh Pond meadow, on the north-
east side of the great swamp. Of these he took
immediate possession, and built upon the
former. By the help of Peter B. Brigham, Esq.,
8
EARLY SETTLERS
of Boston, the rocks have been found, and the
place of his lost habitation has been identified.
It is now in Somerville, about one-third of a
mile south of Tufts College and one hundred
rods east of Cambridge Poor House. On the
southwest side of it is an uplift of clay slate,
about seventy feet in height, overlooking Fresh
Pond, one and one-half miles at the south. A
few rods southwest of this there is another
uplift, of the same formation and of about the
same size and altitude, but the rock does not,
as in the former, crop out. Yet it was doubtless
one of 'the rocks' which constituted a well-
known ancient landmark. For Thomas Dan-
forth, as if connected with Thomas Brigham,
inmiediately after the above assignment, pur-
chased of Nicholas Wyeth forty-eight acres
^ upon the rocks near Alewife meadow, having
Thomas Brigham on the north.' This lot must
have included the site of the Poor House, and
probably the southwest rock, and by its bound-
aries it contributes to the identification of
Brigham's location, which had been ascertained
from other evidence.
10 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
^^ Here lived Thomas Brigham, contented
with his portion of good things, with which the
millionaire is not. Here he read his Bible and
communed with his Kedeemer. Here he inter-
ceded for his race, completed his victory, and
left for his coronation. Hallowed be the place !
Hallowed be his memory! Here let his chil-
dren assemble, to praise and to pray, to know
and be known, and build up a friendship as
enduring as ' the rocks.' "
It should be said that while Mr. Morse be-
lieves that Thomas Brigham lived in Somer-
ville, other authorities say that he lived just
across the line in Cambridge.
John Winthrop, the first Governor of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony who came to
America, was granted the Ten Hills Farm in
1631. It extended from Cradock Bridge, near
Medford Centre, along the Mystic Kiver, nearly
to Convent Hill, and included all the land
between Broadway, as far as the Powder House
on the south and the river on the north.
^^ This was the Governor's Farm, where he
lived, built, planted, raised cattle, and launched
EARLY SETTLERS 11
the first ship in Massachusetts, The Blessing
of the Bay, July 4, 1631.'' ^
The Blessing of the Bay was built for trad-
ing purposes, but soon after its launching it was
armed, and was used as a patrol boat for the
ISTew England coast. Hence it is .regarded as
the beginning of our American navy.
To show how lonely the place was at that
time, the story is frequently told of Governor
Winthrop's losing his way in the woods only a
half-mile from his home. " He wandered about
till, darkness coming on, he spent the night
walking about and singing psalms, for he did
not dare to go to sleep, for fear of wild beasts."
Wild beasts were indeed plenty, for different
travellers have mentioned lions, bears, moose,
deer, porcupine, and raccoons.
Ten Hills Farm became after a while the
Governor's summer residence only. His friend,
Mr. Blackstone, persuaded him to spend his
v/inters in Boston, because there he could find
a spring of pure water.
It is nearly three hundred years since then,
and some of the people of Boston have recently
12 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
tried to induce the authorities to open for public
use the old spring that furnished Governor
Winthrop with pure water. The Old South
Meeting-house stands on what was the Govern-
or's lawn.
The house at Ten Hills Fann in which Cap-
tain Robert Temple lived is thus described:
^' The mansion has a spacious hall and generous
provision of large square rooms. As you ascend
the stairs in front of you, at the first landing
is a glass door, opening into a snug little apart-
ment which overlooks the river. The wainscot-
ing and woodwork were in good condition in
1877 '' — the year in which the old mansion
was torn do^vn.
At the death of Governor Winthrop, in 1649,
the property descended to his son, John, the
Governor of Connecticut.
In 1686, the Royal Charter was suspended,
and it was announced that all lands reverted
to the Crown, and that the owners must take
out "' patents of confirmation " from the new
government. The pastures were seized, and
given to the supporters of Governor Andros.
EARLY SETTLERS 13
Many farms were taken from their owners and
given to the friends of the new Governor.
Ten Hills, however, had already become the
property of a family named Lidgett, friends
of Andros. A portion of it afterward was sold
to Sir Isaac Royall. Five hundred and 'four
acres of it are in Medford. The remainder,
which is in Somerville, two hundred and fifty-
one acres, was sold to Captain Robert Temple.
After this it passed through several hands, till
it became the property of Colonel Samuel
Jaques.
All the owners of Ten Hills Farm have been
governors, or relatives of governors, including
the present owners of the land, the heirs of
Governor Ames.
^' Colonel Jaques was in habits and manners
the type of the English country gentleman.
At Somerville he had a deer park and a pack
of hounds. He often wakened the echoes of
the neighboring hills with the note of his bugle
or the cry of his pack.''
The Governor's house was perhaps a mansion,
but most of the " houses were built of hewn
14 THE STORY OF SOMEBVILLE
logs, with mortar made of mud and sand, and
covered on top by beams and rafters, on which
was fastened a thatching of reeds and boughs.
This thatching was apt to catch fire from sparks
flying out of the chimney/' ^ So dangerous was
this mode of roofing that in 1633 it was agreed
that all houses should be covered with slate or
shingles, instead of thatch.
Governor Winthrop was not contented with
his large farm '^ on the Mistick," for in the
early records we read that " April 3, 1632, the
island [in Boston Harbor] called Conant's
Island, with all the liberties and privileges of
fishing & fowleing, was devised to John Win-
throp, Esq., the p'sent Gov'n, for the terme
of his life for the ffine of fforty shillings."
The Governor was also required to plant an
orchard and a vineyard there, and the island
became kno^vn as the Governor's garden.
In 1640, the title of the island was conveyed
to the Winthrops, on condition of their paying
two bushels of apples a year to the governor and
the General Court. In 1696, a fort was built on
it; it was aftenvard rebuilt and is now called
EARLY SETTLERS 15
Fort Winthrop. This is the island on which a
powder-magazine exploded September 7, 1902,
and in the explosion two citizens from Somer-
ville lost their lives.
Ill
THE HILLS OF SOMEEVILLE
The hills of Somerville were : —
Convent Hill, or Mount Benedict, on the
north side of Broadway, near Franklin Street.
It is sometimes called Ploughed Hill, because
the custom was to plough it, in a circle around
the hill, turning the furrows always down the
slope. This hill has been recently levelled, and
the land has been laid out in lots.
Asylum Hill, sometimes called Miller's Hill,
or Cobble Hill, was situated in the southern
part of the present city. It was bounded in
later years on two sides by the Boston and
Lowell railroad, and on the other two sides by
the Fitchburg and the Grand Junction rail-
roads.
16
THE HILLS OF SOMEBVILLE 17
Winthrop Hill was on the Ten Hills Farm.
Very little of the hill remains.
Winter Hill, the summit of which is on
Broadway, near Central Street, has changed
veiy little in shape and height. The origm of
the name is unknown.
Walnut Tree Hill, now College Hill, is un-
changed. From its summit twenty-two cities
and towns are plainly visible.
Wild Cat Hill was on the border of Alewife
Brook. It is easy to divine the origin of this
name. ^, , t, j
Quarry Hill is the site of the Old Powder
House. .
Strawberry Hill is mentioned once m the
old records. It is supposed to be the high land
near Kent Street. ' Professor Charles Eliot
Norton's grove, just over the Cambridge line,
is a part of it, and the part, in Somerville was
cut away in the construction of Beacon Street.
Central Hill is the site of the high schools.
This land is called Middle Hill on some of the
old maps of Eevolutionary times.
Prospect Hill, on the east of Walnut Street,
18 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
has been cut down to fill Miller's River. The
city has taken the land for a public park, and
on the summit is being erected a lofty tower,
which shall be a memorial of the historic events
connected with the hill.
'^•From Charlestown Neck the marshes ex-
tended to the shores of Miller's and Mystic
Rivers, and from the foot of Prospect Hill to
the foot of Convent and Winter Hills. Asylum
Hill was a peninsula at high tide. Several
creeks and brooks flowed from the higher land
across these marshes to the river. Chief of
these was Miller's River, named after Thomas
Miller, who lived near it. This stream had
its beginning in Cambridge, near Kirkland
Street. A branch of Miller's River began its
course on Highland Avenue, near Spring Hill
Terrace, crossing Central Street near Cambria,
and School Street near Summer Street, joining
the main stream not far from Union
Square. " ^^
In later years Miller's River became a very
unpleasant stream, and by order of the city
THE HILLS OF SOMERVILLE 19
authorities it was filled with the earth taken
from Prospect Hill.
Alewife Brook, our western boundary, . then
called by its Indian name, Menotomy River,
is the outlet of Fresh Pond. It empties into
Mystic River.
The northerly side of Highland Avenue, be^
tween Albion, Lowell, and Central Streets, was
once a bit of marsh called Polly Swamp. Here
started a small stream, called Winthrop Brook.
It flowed northeasterly, crossing Broadway, near
the railroad bridge and Medford Street, in
Medford, finding its way to the Mystic River.
Farther on was Two-Penny Brook, probably
so called on account of its insignificance. It
rose on Broadway, opposite the Simpson estate,
and flowed through the college estate, under the
Lowell railroad, to the river.
'' The main highways were laid out as early
as 1630. The first road in Somerville was
Washington Street, extending from the I^eck to
Cambridge. The next was the easterly part
of Broadway, called the road to Mystic, con-
necting as early as 1637 by trail over, or
20 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
around, Ten Hills Farm, with the ford and
bridge then built at Medford Centre.
^^ Broadway was extended many years later,
over Winter Hill to Menotomy, or, as it is now
called, Arlington.
^^ Middle, or Barberry Lane, now Avon Place,
ran from Cross Street into what is now High-
land Avenue. At School Street it turned
northerly ten rods, then continued westerly
and ended in Central Street." ^^
The first inhabitants built on Town Hill, near
Charlestown City Square. They had little
gardens near their homes, but the grazing
ground for their cattle was Somerville, which
was called '' Cow Commons " and later '^ The
Stinted Common." It remained a cow pasture
till 1685.
" As early as 1632, a herdsman had charge
of the cows. He blew his horn from Town
Hill every morning, from April to October, to
collect the herd and to drive them to the best
places on the Common. His salary for the
year was fifty bushels of Indian corn."
In 1685, the Stinted Common was divided
THE HILLS OF SOMEEVILLE 21
into strips a fourth of a mile wide with num-
bered rangeways between them.
The first rangeway is now Franklin Street ;
the second, Cross Street ; the third, Walnut ; the
fourth, School; the fifth, Central; the sixth,
Lowell ; the seventh. Cedar ; and the eighth, Wil-
low Avenue. There were three others, running
from Broadway, beyond Elm Street, into Med-
ford. The land between these highways was
cut up into famis. East Somerville was a large
farming tract. These rangeways were origi-
nally two rods wide, but the one corresponding
to Cross Street was three rods wide, and there-
fore was called '' Three-Pole Lane." (The old
arithmetics used to teach, ^^ sixteen and one-half
feet make one rod, perch, or pole.")
Central Street has been called Eand's Lane;
Lowell Street, White Street; Willow Avenue,
Irving Street.
The territory thus laid out extended from
Washington Street, Bow Street, and Somerville
Avenue to Broadway, and from the present
Charlestown line to Elm Street.
22 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
One of the early writers, speaking of this
part of the country, says : —
"It is very beantiful in open lands, mixed
with goodly woods, and again open plains, in
some places five hundred acres; some more,
some less, not much troublesome for to clear, or
for the plough to go in; no place barren but
on the tops of the hills. The grass and weeds
grow up to a man's face on the lowlands, and
by fresh rivers abundance of grass, and large
meadows, without any tree or shrub to hinder
the scythe."
lY
EAELY CUSTOMS
The colonists had many customs that may
seem very peculiar in our day.
The Town Messenger watched all visitors,
and gave notice to the Selectmen of their
names, whence they came, and where they
lodged.
" The night-watch with great-coats, dark
lanterns, and iron-shod staffs went their rounds,
to warn all wayfarers to their beds, admonish
the people who might chance to be abroad, or
arrest evil doers."
The watchman had an ancient custom of
crying, " AlTs well ! " and the hour of the night,
as he went his rounds, at the same time striking
his staff upon the pavement.
Doctor Bentley, of Salem, inquired through
23
24 , THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
a newspaper if it would not be better ^' to cry
out when all was 7iot well and to let well enough
alone.'' ^^
In the meeting-house the women and men sat
in separate seats. Clocks must have been scarce
in those days, for the Town Messenger stood near
the pulpit and turned the hour-glass to deter-
mine the length of the service.
They had some very curious laws, too.
'^ If men took tobacco publicly, or privately
in their homes before acquaintances or
strangers, they were obliged to pay a fine.
Young women were not allowed to wear short
sleeves, or very wide ones. For profanity, one
man had his tongue put into a cleft stick aiid
kept there for half an hour. Church bells used'
to ring at five in the morning and at eight in
the evening, and people were obliged by law to
be in their houses at nine." ^^
The hour must have been changed afterward,
for in many old tOTVTis in New England, the
church bells are rung at nine o'clock in the
evening, and at noon.
For wrong-doing the same punishments that
EARLY CUSTOMS 25
were customary in England were used here:
The Stock, the Gag, and the Ducking-Stool.
The Stool was a chair, into which the victim
was fastened, being then dipped three times in
some convenient place of fresh, or salt, water,
as the Judge decided. The Stocks stood in the
Market Place. The prisoner sat here, exposed
to the public view, with hands and feet fastened
in an uncomfortable position.
The most common method of travelling was
on horseback, or by stage-coach.
The wealthy families owned one or more
slaves. In 1678, a vessel brought about fifty
into Boston, mostly women and children, who
were sold at prices varying from $50 to $100
each. ^-^
The first general post-ofiice was established
in 1710.
All kinds of business and trades flourished
here. In 1645, a mill was built at Charlestown
E'eck, opposite Miller's Eiver. Among the vari-
ous trades carried on here between 1630 and
1650 were: Farming; fishing; coopering; tile
making; brewing; rope and anchor making;
26 THE STOBY OF SOMEBVILLE
charcoal burning ; the manufacture of salt ; and
various kinds of mill work.
A Town government was very early organized
and local laws were enacted. The Town officers
were the ^' Seven men, or Selectmen, Constables,
Highway Surveyors, Town Clerk, Herdsman,
Overseers of the Fields, and Chimney Sweep-
ers." 15
Every house had to be provided with ladders
as a precaution against fire. Coal mines had
not been discovered in this country at that time,
and wood was the chief fuel. This caused a
great deal of soot, which was apt to settle on
the inside of the chimneys, and was very in-
flammable. For this reason the law required
the chimneys to be swept once a month in
winter, and once in two months in summer. As
the chimneys were often narrow, little boys were
employed to get inside of them and sweep out
the soot.
'' In 1633, the town gave liberty to any of its
inhabitants to build outside the Neck, and in
1634, ten persons were granted ^ planting-
ground ' on the south side of New Yowne High-
EARLY CUSTOMS 27
way. New Towne Highway was the road to
Cambridge, or Washington Street." ^^
'' In 1643, the Colony of Massachusetts Bay
was divided into four shires, or counties, of
which Middlesex, named after that county in
England which includes London, was one.
'^ It is the most populous [1873] of all the
counties of the Old Bay State, and embraces
within its limits the earliest battlefields of the
Revolution, the first seat of learning in the
English colonies, and the manufactures which
have made American industry known' in every
quarter of the globe." '^'^
Very few people know anything about the
old canal, which was once the great water road
between Boston and the falls of the Merrimac.
The remains of the Middlesex Canal can be
seen [1903] in the towns of Medford and
Wobum, and some portions probably exist just
north of Mystic Avenue, near the Charlestown
line.
In 1793, the construction of the canal was
begun, but it was not wholly finished till 1804.
28 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
Its starting-place in Boston was in the vicinity
of Haymarket Square.
When the railroad between Boston and
Lowell was built, and trains could cross in an
hour the distance for which the canal-boats re-
quired twelve hours, the usefulness of the canal
was over, and it was finally abandoned.
V
THE POWDER HOUSE
One of the ancient landmarks in Massachu-
setts is the Powder House. It ornaments the
heading of our local newspaper, and is an
important feature in the badge of the Heptorean
Club. It stands on a little hill near the old
quarry, close to the road leading from Winter
Hill to Arlington.
^' For solitary picturesqueness, in all 'New
England, only the Old Mill in I^ewport can
rival it. Long before you reach the spot its
venerable aspect rivets the attention. Its novel
structure, its solid masonry, no less than the
extraordinary contrast with everything around
it, stamp it as the handiwork of a generation
long since forgotten." ^^
The hill on which the Old Powder House
29
30 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
stands was awarded to Sergeant Richard
Lowden, about nine or ten acres in all. After
his death the estate was sold in 1703-4 to Jona-
than Foskett, who sold it to Jean Mallet, a
shipwright, afterward a miller, who probably
built the curious old mill. Mallet died in
1722-3, and he left the property to his son,
Michael, who, in 1747, sold it to the State for
a powder magazine.
" The walls of the mill are two feet thick, with
an inner structure of brick,, the outside of which
is encased in a shell of blue stone, quarried
probably near by. Within, it had three stages,
or lofts, supported by oaken beams of great
thickness, with about six feet of clear space
between. The edifice is about thirty feet
high, with a diameter of fifteen feet at its
base." 1^
The view from the southwest door is a most
charming one. ^ear the mill stood the farm-
house, where the miller dwelt. The farmers
for many miles around sent their corn to be
ground at this mill.
The Powder House is connected with one of
THE POWDER HOUSE 31
the first hostile acts by General Gage in the
Kevolutionary War, namely, the seizure of the
powder belonging to the Province. The Major-
General of the Massachusetts militia, William
Brattle, suggested to General Gage that it would
be well to gain possession of the powder stored
in the old mill, x^bout half -past four on the
morning of September 1, 1774, two hundred
and sixty soldiers, under the command of Lieu-
tenant-Colonel Madison, embarked from Long
Wharf, in Boston, in thirteen boats, sailed up
the Mystic Kiver, landed at Ten Hills Farm,
marched to the Powder House, and removed all
the powder in it. Some authorities say that
it contained two hundred and fifty half -barrels,
others that it had two hundred and twelve half-
barrels. The powder was conveyed to Castle
Island.
When the Province bought the Old Mill, only
a quarter of an acre of land belonged to it.
More than seventy years ago it was sold to
I^athan Tufts. His children gave it, and sixty-
five thousand feet of land, to the City of
Somerville, in 1890. The City purchased sev-
32 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
eral thousand feet additional, and it is now a
delightful park.
We may imagine the Kevolutionary heroes
visiting this mill and listening to the legend
connected with it.
One dark evening, the miller heard the
trampling of a horse near the door, and a faint
voice crying '' Halloo ! " He rushed to the door,
and saw a boy on horseback. The lad seemed
weary, and the horse looked as if it had been
driven very hard. It was not uncommon for
farmers to give rest and shelter to belated
travellers, so the miller kindly invited the boy
to come in. He gave him a seat at the table
where the family were at supper. The boy,
however, had no appetite, and, after tasting
a few mouthfuls, shrank into a corner near
the fire.
When supper was over and the farmer's wife
sat down with her knitting, she tried to discover
something about the boy's home, but he an-
swered reluctantly and seemed very stupid.
Soon bedtime came, and the farmer told the
stranger to go up-stairs with his oldest son and
THE POWDER HOUSE 33
share his room, but the boy implored the farmer
to let him sit by the fire, unless he could have
a room to himself. The farmer was angry, and
thought the boy might have bad companions
who wished to rob the family, so he told him
if he felt too proud to sleep with any one he
might sleep in the mill with the rats. The
boy eagerly accepted the proposal, and the
miller, carrying a lantern through the darkness
and the mist, led the way. The youth climbed
up the ladder to the first stage. The miller
locked the door, and hurried away. The boy
looked about him in the gloom and shivered.
When he heard the rats rushing over the floor
he burst into tears. Kneeling on the floor, he
prayed for help and protection, and then,
stretching himself on the hard boards, he sobbed
till he fell asleep.
In the middle of the night he was awakened
by the clanking of keys and the sound of voices.
' He seemed frantic at the sound. He hastily
drew up the ladder by which he had ascended,
and climbed to the upper loft. Soon the miUei
appeared below, with a lantern. With him was
34. THE STORY OF SOMEBVILLE
another man. " Come down, Josephine," he
called, ^' and I'll forgive yon for running away.
I'll promise not to touch you."
Josephine crept into the darkest corner and
remained motionless.
" Bring another ladder ! " screamed the en-
raged stranger, ^' and I'll bring her down, or
break her neck for the chase she has led me ! "
With the help of another ladder, he climbed
to the loft. He groped about to find the girl,
but, unused to the place, and with so dim a
light, he could scarcely see; but he could hear
her creeping away from him, and he tried to
seize her. He missed her, and fell against the
edge of the opening. In his fright he grasped
the rope that set the mill wheels in motion.
'^ Let go the cord ! " cried the miller, ^' or
you are a dead man ! "
It was too late. The wheels could not be
stopped in an instant, and when they were at
rest, the man was taken out, injured beyoifd
recovery.
Josephine was an Acadian girl who had been
entrusted to his care by the Government. He
THE POWDER HOUSE 35
beat her, and treated her cruelly in many ways.
When she could endure her suffering no longer,
she disguised herself as a boy and ran away
from him. As she was bound to him by law till
she was of age, no one could take her away from
him, or give her help if it were known who
she was.
Before noon the man died. The girl, who
had no parents or near relatives, found a happy
home with the miller and his wife.
Such is the legend of the Powder House, as
it has come down to us. It is based, however,
on tradition, and not on historical authority.
VI
TEOUBLE WITH EISTGLAI^D
The rivers flowed peacefully to the sea.
Fields of waving corn and golden grain lay
in the autumnal sunshine. Rosy apples gleamed
amid the green leaves in the orchard, and
yellow pumpkins brightened the hillsides.
The hardy, happy farmers, laboring in the
fields, gathered the fruit, vegetables, and grain,
looking forward to a winter of plenty and rest.
Suddenly rumors filled the air. Men gathered
in groups, to discuss the situation. Some talked
of war, others counselled peace and submission
to the mother country.
This trouble had not been wholly unexpected.
Some of the laws passed by Great Britain had
been very oppressive, and the long-suffering
people determined not to submit to them.
Many of the colonists sided with the British
36
TROUBLE WITH ENGLAND 37
government. They were called Tories. Mem-
bers of the opposing party were usually called
Americans, sometimes Yankees.
The several towns had been quietly collecting
arms and ammunition for a contest which all
hoped would never take place.
September 1, 1774, the powder was removed
from the Powder House in Somerville, by the
command of General Gage, and this act was the
signal for a general revolt.
'' Fifty thousand ' well-armed ' men had re-
sponded to this alarm ; ' the whole country was
in arms ' ; they came not only from Middlesex
and the adjacent counties, but from the western
part of the State, and even from Connecti-
cut." 20
The King's officers were astonished and
troubled at the turn of events. They endeav-
ored to allay the excitement of the people, and
to pacify them; they said they were sorry to
carry out laws so offensive to the colonists, and
immediately resigiied their positions. The
people, seeing no cause for further alarm, dis-
banded and returned to their homes.
VII
OLD HOMESTEADS
The houses in Somerville at the time of the
Revolution were as follows : —
The Locke place was on Broadway, near the
Charlestown line. The residence of the late
Fitch Cutter was opposite. His house was
moved to the corner of Sycamore and Forster
Streets, where it now [1903] stands. There
was a house on the southwest corner of Cross
Street and one on the northeast corner of Tem-
ple Street. On the summit of Winter Hill
stood Joseph Tufts's house, now moved to
Lowell Street. Daniel Tufts lived in a house
which was, until recently, a part of the mansion
on the north side of Broadway, opposite the
Powder Magazine. The home of Oliver
Tufts was owned and occupied by John Tufts.
OLD HOMESTEADS 39
David Wood had a country house on Three-Pole
Lane, near the northeast corner of Pearl Street.
On the road from Charlestown to Cambridge
was the house of Joseph Miller, on the eastern
comer of Franklin Street. It is still standing.
The second story of Mr. William Walker's
house was one of the old dwellings. Fifty
yards east of Mystic Street is the house where
Mrs. Debby Shedd lived. It is still standing.
There was a house on the southeast corner of
Prospect Street. Pythian Block occupies the
site of Ben Piper's Tavern. Samuel Choate's
house was on the western side of Bow Street.
Samuel Tufts occupied the old homestead
still standing on the west side of Somerville
Avenue, near Laurel Street. The widow Kand
lived on the northeast corner of Central Street.
Samuel Kent lived in the low hip-roofed
house now standing at the corner of Garden
Court.
^N'ear Willow Avenue is the residence of
Timothy Tufts. ^' The house stands unchanged,
though more than a hundred years old, and is
still occupied by a Timothy Tufts." ^^
40 THE STORY OF SOMEEVILLE
The John Tufts house on Sycamore Street
stood on the edge of the road. It has recently
been moved back a few feet, and a porch and
steps have been added to the front entrance. It
is now leased to the Somerville Historical
Society. Meetings are held there, and many
valuable souvenirs, either given, or loaned to
the Society, are kept there on exhibition. The
house is owned by Mrs. Annie Fletcher, the
daughter of Oliver Tufts, and the wife of W.
K. Fletcher, M. D.
'aV
1 M^^ .
YIII
CONCOKD AND LEXmGTOI^
"DuRmG tlie winter of 1YY4-5 England
passed an act forbidding the importation into
the colonies of arms and munitions of war.
This act caused much alarm, and the Americans
began to conceal and protect the supplies al-
ready on hand. These were placed in different
towns, one of which was Concord. General
Gage discovered this, and determined to cap-
ture the stores, and the Americans were equally
determined to prevent the capture. A company
of thirty men arranged with one another to
watch 'two and two' the movements of the
British. They found out that the British in-
tended to start April 18 for Concord, to cap-
ture the powder, and Paul Revere was sent by
way of Charlestown to warn the inhabitants." ^^
41
42 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
He left Boston about ten o'clock Tuesday
night, April 18, 1775, and paddled across tlie
bay to Charlestown, where a friend was waiting
with his horse. When the signal lights in the
belfry of the old North Church told of the
approach of the British, Paul Kevere rode
swiftly to the Market Place in Charlestown,
which is now City Square. Turning to the
left, he went up what is now Cambridge Street,
to the corner of Crescent Street, Somerville.
Here he saw two men talking. They were on
horseback. They were British officers. He
turned his horse quickly, and galloped to Sulli-
van Square, Charlestown, and from there rode
up Broadway to Winter Hill, over the hill into
Medford. He was pursued by the horsemen.
One endeavored to head him off by crossing the
fields, but he fell into a clay-pit, thus enabling
Revere to escape. From Medford he proceeded
to Arlington, then to Lexington and beyond,
where he was captured, but not till he had
alarmed the country. It was on this journey
that some one opened a window and reproved
him for making so much noise. *^ ^N'oise ! "
CONCORD AND LEXINGTON 43
exclaimed Kevere. "You'll have enough of
it before morning. The British are coming! "
" Through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night ;
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight
Kindled the land into flame with its heat."
" It was after eleven o'clock when Colonel
Francis Smith, with eight hundred men, landed
at Lechmere's Point from the boats of the men-
of-war. It was a fine moonlight night. Pickets
had been stationed on the road, by General
Gage's order, and if Kevere had not met with
two of these patrols he would have been caught
by the main body of troops." ^^
The column moved silently through Cam-
bridge, past the old tavern on the corner of
Beech Street and Massachusetts Avenue. The
peaceful inhabitants were roused from their
beds by the ringing of bells and beat of drum,
when the Americans realized that the foe was
approaching. The men arming and hastening
to the scene, women crying, children weeping
and clinging to their parents, — all made a
scene of terror impossible to describe.
I
44 THE STORY OF SOMEBVILLE
'' On the march to Concord the British troops
passed through Somerville. The residents were
awakened by the noise and heard them call
Piper's Tavern, which stood where Pythian
Block now stands in Union Square. An old
house, occupied by the Widow Smith, stood on
the east side of the present Wesley Park. Here
the troops halted and drank at the well, and
were seen by the people living in the house.
The Widow Band, who lived on the northwest
corner of Central Street, heard the tramp of
men and ran in her night-clothes to the house
of Samuel Tufts, who was too busy making bul-
lets in his kitchen to attend to street noises.
He saddled his horse instantly, and galloped
across to Cambridge, to tell the news. Then
they came to Timothy Tufts's house on Elm
Street, near Beech, stopping there for water." ^"^
Mr. Tufts's dog awoke and barked. This
aroused the family, and looking out they saw
the moving points of eight hundred bayonets,
glittering above a moving mass, disappearing
into Beech Street.
Of the struggle and defeat of the Kegulars
CON COED AND LEXINGTON 45
at Concord it is not necessary to speak. We all
know that. " It was six in the evening when
they returned, almost on a run. They came
through Beech Street into Elm Street. The
Americans fired upon them, and some were
killed, who now lie buried in Mr. Tufts' s lot,
just inside the wall.
'' Lord Percy, who tried at every point to
check the pursuers, fired on the Americans from
the northerly slope of Spring Hill. The troops
continued to retreat down Elmx Street and Som-
erville Avenue, one man being killed near
Central Street, at which point a volley was
fired into Mr. Eand's house.
" There was an old pond at the foot of Laurel
Street, and the soldiers threw themselves into
it and drank eagerly, ^ear Walnut Street
another soldier fell. Down Washington Street
they ran, passing around the foot of Prospect
Hill.
'' The only Somerville citizen who fell in this
battle was James Miller. He, with others,
was firing on the British from the slope of
Prospect Hill, when the flankers surprised
46 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
them. The rest fled, but Miller, still firing,
stood at his post, and when urged by his com-
rades to fly, answered : ' I am too old to run ! '
" On the north side of Washington Street,
near Mystic Street, is the house then owned by
Thomas Shed. A British soldier entered it,
and while rummaging a bureau was shot. This
bureau, or ' high-boy ' as it is called, with
its bullet-holes, is now in the possession of the
family of :N'athan Tufts." ^5
The battle of Lexington ended in Somerville,
and in its glory, as well as in its horror, Somer-
ville has a share.
IX
BUNKEK HILL
King George wished to collect all the money
he could from the Colonists. He claimed a
certain part of the cargoes in their ships. If
the Colonies traded with one another, there was
a tax for that. If goods were brought into this
country, they were taxed. If people seemed
unwilling to pay, soldiers were sent to live in
their houses until they were glad to pay some-
thing, to get rid of their unwelcome visitors.
Then the Colonies resisted. They refused to
pay the tax on tea sent over here in English
ships. The King was firm ; so were the people.
They resolved not to be taxed without their
consent. The king sent an army and war-ships
to America.
More troops were sent here, and soldiers were
47
48 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
constantly on the streets, and the Colonists
determined to drive the troops out of Boston.
Yonng men left their work in the fields, and
became soldiers. Meetings were held, and com-
panies were formed, until the Americans had a
large army, under General Ward. The plan
was to drive the British out of Boston into their
ships, which were lying in the harbor. So they
besieged Boston, and formed a line of entrench-
ments, to cut the British off from food and
other necessities. Charlestown was selected for
the point of attack, because it was nearer Bos-
ton.
On April 20, 1775, General Ward took com-
mand of the American forces, and established
his headquarters at Cambridge.
The enlistment of soldiers went on rapidly,
and in a few days thirty thousand men were
gathered. A great part of them came from
New Hampshire, Ehode Island, and Connecti-
cut.
Washington Street skirts the base of Pros-
pect Hill, leaving the McLean Asylum on the
south, and conducting straight on to the col-
BUNKER HILL 49
lege in Cambridge. By this road the Americans
marched to and retreated from Bunker Hill.
The second road proceeded by Mount Bene-
dict to the summit of Winter Hill, where it
divided, one branch turning northward to
Medford, while the other pursued its way by
the Powder Magazine to Arlington.
Besides these, there were no other roads lead-
ing to Boston. The shore between was a marsh,
unimproved except for the hay it afforded. A
causeway from the side of Prospect Hill and a
bridge across Miller's Eiver gave access to the
farm at Lechmere's Point.
Mount Benedict is the first point, after pass-
ing Charlestown ^eck, where we encounter the
American line of investment during the siege
of Boston. ^' The hill was within short cannon
range of the British Post on Bunker Hill." ^^
Before the battle of Bunker Hill, earthworks
were thrown up near Union Square, command-
ing Washington Street. '' On June 16, General
Ward ordered Colonel William Prescott, with
three Massachusetts regiments and a battalion
of Connecticut troops, about a thousand or
50 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
twelve hundred in all, to proceed that night to
Charles town, and seize and fortify Bunker Hill.
The troops were paraded on Cambridge Com-
mon, and after a prayer by Doctor Langdon,
president of Harvard College, at about nine
o'clock in the evening, began their march toward
Bunker Hill, passing through Somerville by
way of Washington Street and Union Square,
down to, and across, the Neck. Colonel Pres-
cott, with two sergeants carrying dark lanterns,
led the way.
" General Israel Putnam and Colonel Kich-
ard Gridley, the engineer of the army, accom-
panied the expedition, and following were
wagons, with entrenching tools.
" Colonel John Patterson's regiment of Berk-
shire men had been stationed at the redoubt near
the foot of Prospect Hill, where they probably
remained throughout the day. All other Massa-
chusetts troops and those of New Hampshire
and Connecticut were ordered to the front. A
great part of them never arrived there, the furi-
ous cannonading from the fleet across the Neck,
and into East Somerville, rendering any attempt
(
BUNKER HILL 51
to reach the peninsula perilous. Yet it was
over this Neck and through this storm of shot
and shell that the terror-stricken people fled
into Somerville from their burning homes in
Charlestown.
^^ Somerville beheld vivid scenes of war that
day: incessant marching of troops toward the
front, over Washington Street and Broadway;
citizens fleeing here and there from their burn-
ing town ; officers galloping to and fro between
the battle-field and Cambridge; artillery bom-
barding the fleet from Asylum Hill; shot and
shell from the frigates mercilessly raking the
easterly part of the town; fugitives and
wounded soldiers, on litters or on the shoulders
of their comrades, hurrying to places of safety ;
and finally the retreating army, who, victorious
in defeat, planted themselves on Prospect and
Winter Hills, expecting a renewal of the battle
and prepared for it." '^'^
" It is worthy of remembrance that the orders
to take possession of the hill were issued on the
same day that Washington was officially notified
of his appointment to command the army." ^^
KEVOLUTIO:^rAEY FOKTIFICATIONS
After the battle of Bunker Hill, the Ameri-
cans began to fortify Prospect and Winter
Hills. The works on Prospect Hill were super-
intended by General Putnam. The New Hamp-
shire men, under General Folsom, were actively
constructing fortifications on Winter Hill.
" Mount Benedict was fortified by General
Sullivan under a severe cannonade, the working
party being covered by a detachment of rifle-
men, posted in an orchard and under the shelter
of stone walls.
" The Continental advanced outpost was in
an orchard in front of Mount Benedict. In
summer the poor fellows were not so badly off,
but in the inclement winter they needed the
great watch-coats which were every night issued
52
REVOLUTIONARY FORTIFICATIONS 53
to them before they went on duty, and which
the poverty of the army required them to turn
over to the relieving guard. Here, as at Boston
Neck, the pickets were near enough to each
other to converse freely, a practice it was found
necessary to prohibit." ^^
On Prospect Hill General Greene had his
Ehode Islanders, and on Winter Hill were the
men of ^N'ew Hampshire.
" In a letter to the Committee of Safety,
General Sullivan lamented extremely that the
New Hampshire forces were without a chap-
lain and were obliged to attend prayers with the
Ehode Islanders on Prospect Hill.
" On a little promontory which overlooks the
Mystic, could long be seen the remains of a
redoubt erected by General Sullivan [now gone,
1903] . At this point the river makes a westerly
bend, so that a hostile flotilla must approach for
some distance in the teeth of a raking fire from
this redoubt. This was fully proved when the
enemy brought their floating batteries within
range to attack the working party on Ploughed
Hill [Mount Benedict] and enfilade the road.
54 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
A nine-pounder mounted in this redoubt sank
one of the enemy^s batteries and disabled the
other, while an armed vessel which accompanied
them had her foresail shot away and was obliged
to sheer off.
" Leaving the redoubt, a hundred yards higher
up the hill, we find traces of another work, with
two of the angles quite clearly defined." ^^
These traces no longer exist.
July 2, 1775, there arrived in camp General
Washington, accompanied by General Charles
Lee, second in command, and Horatio Gates,
adjutant-general of the army. General Lee's
headquarters w^ere in the John Tufts house on
Sycamore Street.
" All the State organizations on July 4 were
taken into the service and pay of the United
Colonies and reorganized, and on July 22 were
formed into three divisions, viz. : —
" The left wing was composed of two bri-
gades, one at Winter Hill under General Sulli-
van, the other at Prospect Hill, under General
Greene; the centre, two brigades, one com-
manded by Heath ; the right also was composed
REVOLUTIONARY FORTIFICATIONS 55
of two brigades. The left held the line from
Mystic Eiver to Prospect Hill ; the centre from
Prospect Hill to Charles Kiver ; the right from
Charles Kiver to Koxbury JSTeck. The entire
left wing and perhaps half of the centre were
within Somerville limits, and her hills were
crowned with the strongest and most elaborate
works of the whole line, among which were:
The redoubt on Ten Hills Farm ; ' Winter Hill
Fort ' ; the ' French Redoubt ' on Central Hill ;
the 'Citadel' on Prospect Hill; the strong
entrenchments on Ploughed Hill ; ' Fort
Number Three/ near Union Square ; and Put-
nam's 'Impregnable Fortress/ on Cobble
Hill." 31
'' The principal fortification of the left wing
was thrown up directly across the road leading
over the hill, now Broadway, at the point where
the Medford road diverges.
" A hundred yards in advance of the fort
were outworks, in which guards were nightly
posted. When Central Street was made, the
remains of the entrenchment were exposed and
are remembered by some of the older people." ^^
56 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLB
" July 6, 1775, the Continental Congress is-
sued a declaration setting forth the grievances
of the Provinces and reasons for taking arms;
July 15, this was read at Cambridge, and July
18, to the army on Prospect Hill, and was re-
ceived with patriotic enthusiasm. A prayer
was offered by the Keverend Mr. Langdon, can-
non were fired, and the Connecticut flag, re-
cently received by Putnam, was unfurled. On
one side it bore the motto, ' An Appeal to
Heaven,' and on the other, ^ Qui transtulit sus-
tinet.' [He who has transplanted will sustain.]
On the night of October 22, General Putnam
took possession of Cobble Hill [Asylimi
grounds] and began fortifying.
" December 28, an endeavor was made by a
detachment from Winter Hill to capture the
enemy's pickets near the N'eck. They attempted
to cross on the ice just south of Cobble Hill, but
one of the men, slipping, fell and discharged
his musket, thereby alarming the British, and
the expedition was abandoned.
" From Prospect Hill, January 1, 1776, the
new flag of the United Colonies was unfurled
Evolutionary fortifications 57
to the breeze. It had thirteen stripes, alternate
red and white, but the field contained, instead
of stars, as now, the crosses of Saint George
and Saint Andrew. A year and a half later,
stars took the place of crosses. A tablet has
been erected on the hill in memory of this flag-
raising.
'^ In February, Colonel Knox arrived with
the captured Ticonderoga cannon and stores.
These increased immensely the strength of the
Americans, and a little later enabled them to
carry into execution that daring feat, the seizing
and fortifying of Dorchester Heights. This
successful movement so seriously threatened
the British army and shipping, that after vari-
ous threatening manoeuvres, on Sunday, March
17, they embarked and left Boston forever." ^^
The British planned a campaign along the
banks of the Hudson River under Generals Bur-
goyne and Howe. Burgoyne surrendered to
General Gates at Saratoga October 17, 1777.
In Burgoyne's army were nineteen hundred
Germans. They were brought to Winter Hill,
58 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
and given quarters in the tents and barracks
formerly used by the American soldiers.
These Germans were hired by the British
from the Landgrave of Plesse, the Duke of
Brunswick, and the Count of Hanau. They
were promised free passage to England, and
were brought to Somerville in order to embark
from Boston.
'' The camp of the prisoners was encircled by
a chain of outposts. The officers, who were
permitted to go beyond the camp, were obliged
to promise in writing, on their word of honor,
to go no farther beyond it than a mile and a
half.
^^ The camp was located on a height, which,
to a distance of eight miles, was surrounded
with woods, thus presenting a splendid view of
Boston, the harbor, and the vast ocean. '^ ^^
The Hessians remained here a year, and then
were moved to Virginia.
This ended Somerville's share in the Eevolu-
tionary War.
XI
THE STKEETS
War ended, peace declared, freedom and
independence established, the farmer could now
change his sword for a scythe, and devote his
energies to cultivating the soil and improving
his home.
In the part that is now called Somerville,
the houses were few and far between.
There were few streets, also. Along the
marsh below Union Square berry bushes grew
in abundance, and the pink petals of the marsh-
mallow waved like rosy banners in the August
breeze. Apple orchards were plenty, and the
boys had free access to them. The old canal
was new then, and carried passengers and
freight from Boston to Lowell. On the hills
picnic parties gathered under the sheltering
59
60 THE STORY OF SOMEBVILLE
trees in summer, and young people enjoyed the
pleasure of coasting down their slopes in winter,
without danger to themselves, or to the '^ grown-
ups/' who had room enough to get out of the
way.
Very few of the streets bear the names now
that they were called by in the beginning of
the last century. Somerville Avenue was called
Milk Row, on account of the number of milk
dealers who lived on it. Mystic Avenue, laid
out about 1803, was called the Medford Turn-
pike.
A Turnpike Road is a road closed by toll-
gates or crossbars. The toll collected from
carriages, teams, and foot-passengers, whenever
the gates are opened, is used to defray the ex-
pense of keeping the road in order. These toll-
gates are quite common in the rural districts
of England, and we imported the custom from
that country.
Beacon and Hampshire Streets were laid out
in 1800, and were called '^ the Middlesex Turn-
pike.'' Broadway has been called by nine dif-
ferent names, and Washington Street by ten.
THE STREETS ' 61
Many of the modern streets were named for
trees which probably grew on the spot. We
have Willow Avenue, Cherry and Cedar Streets,
Linden Avenue, and Beech Street. The latter
street begins on Somerville Avenue, runs north
for some distance, then west, and ends in Spring
Street. The part running from Somerville Ave-
nue was originally called Oak Street, but some
real estate owner near Union Square opened
a longer street, and the name of little Oak
Street was changed to Beech Street To make
it still more confusing, the extension of this
street from the Martin W. Carr School to Cen-
tral Street is called Atherton Street.
Continuing, we have Laurel, Cypress, Maple,
and Poplar Streets. We have also Elm Street,
Garden Court, and Walnut and Vine Streets.
One short street bore the very pretty name of
Chestnut Court. It has had several aliases, as
Chestnut Place, Harvard Place, York Terrace,
and is now [1903] called Monmouth Street.
Other streets are named in honor of the old
families who have been active in town affairs;
as, for instance, Vinal Avenue and Aldersey
62 THE STORY OF SOMEBVILLE
Street are reminders of the Vinal family, whose
members have always occupied an honorable
position in the history of Somerville. Stone
Avenue is a memorial of another old family.
Tufts Street, Temple Street, Craigie Street,
Munroe Street, and Jaques Street, among others,
are identified with the names of the early set-
tlers.
In order to perpetuate the memory of the
historic deeds of our ancestors, the city in 1890
erected various tablets throughout the city. The
inscriptions are as follows : —
On Abner Blaisdell's house, Somerville Ave-
nue : " Headquarters of Brigadier-General
IN'athaniel Greene, in command of the Khode
Island Troops during the siege of Boston,
1775-6."
On the Oliver Tufts house, Sycamore Street :
" Headquarters of Major-General Charles Lee,
commanding left wing of the American Army
during the siege of Boston, 1775-6."
On the stonework of the battery. Central Hill
Park : " This battery was erected by the city
in 1885, and is within the lines of the * French
THE STREETS 63
Redoubt,' built by the Eevolutionary Army in
1775 as a part of the besieging lines of Boston.
The guns were donated by Congress, and were
in service during the late Civil War."
On Prospect Hill : '' On this Hill the Union
Flag with its thirteen stripes — the emblem of
the United Colonies — first bade Defiance to
an Enemy, January 1, 1776. Here was the
Citadel, the most formidable work in the Amer-
ican Lines during the Siege of Boston: June
17, 1775, to March 17, 1776."
On Elm Street, corner of Willow * Avenue :
" A sharp fight occurred here, between the
Patriots and the British, April 19, 1775. This
marks British Soldiers' graves."
On Washington Street, corner of Dane Street :
" John Woolrich, Indian Trader, built near this
place in 1630 — the first white settler on Som-
erville soil."
At the junction of Broadway and Main
Street : " Paul Revere passed over this road,
on his midnight ride to Lexington and Con-
cord, April 18, 1775. Site of the Winter Hill
64 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
Fort, a stronghold built bj the American Forces
while besieging Boston, 1775 - 6."
On Washington Street, opposite Rossmore
Street: '' On this Hillside, James Miller, Min-
ute-man, aged sixty-five, was slain by the Brit-
ish, April 19, 1775. — ' I am too old to run.' "
The report of the Historical Society for 1901
has the following : —
" The marking of the many historical places
in Somerville is one of the things to which the
Historical Society is giving its attention. Last
year, on its petition to the city, the outline of
the famous French Redoubt on Central Hill
was designated by granite monuments set in
the ground; a tablet showing the form of the
work, etc., was placed alongside of the one
descriptive of the present battery, but by some
oversight the fact that the marking was done
on petition of our society does not appear on
the tablet.
" This year the society has again petitioned
for the permanent marking of quite a number
of other interesting places. This petition was
quickly referred to a committee, and the proper
THE STREETS 65
order passed to carry out the suggestion. The
list of places is as follows : —
On Masonic Block, Union Square : " Site of recruit-
ing stand for Union soldiers in Civil War."
On Asylum Hill (Cobble Hill) : <' Site of ' Putnam's
impregnable fortress,' 1775."
On Convent Hill (Ploughed Hill): "Fortified and
bombarded in 1775-76. Site of Ursuline Convent,
founded 1820, and opened 1826 ; burned 1834. Hill
dug down 1875 to 1897."
On south side Mystic Avenue (nearly opposite coal
wharf : " Old fort. Extreme left of American army,
1775-76. Commanded Mystic River."
In Broadway Park : " Route of Middlesex Canal.
Chartered 1793; opened 1803."
At Somerville and Charlestown line on Washington
Street: "Paul Revere, on his famous ride, April 18,
1775, was iirtercepted here by British officers, and
escaped."
On Ten Hills Farm : " Site of the mansion of Robert
Temple, afterward Colonel Jaques."
On old wharf, east of Middlesex Avenue, near new
bridge, south shore Mystic River : " Ancient wharf.
Here Govertior Winthrop launched the ' Blessing of
the Bay,' the first ship built in Massachusetts, July 4,
1631. The British landed here in their raid on the
Powder House, September 1, 1774."
On Prospect Hill : " Site of old wind mill."
XII
THE BUR]^i:NrG OF THE C0:N^VEKT
The hills that were admired by the residents
of adjacent towns and villages are now de^
molished, with a few exceptions.
A slight eminence shows where Winthrop
Hill stood, but all traces of its former beauty
are gone.
" Asylum Hill/' " Miller's Hill/' or " Cobble
Hill/' is very much changed. In 1816 it was
sold to the Massachusetts General Hospital,
and the grounds were laid out with care, and
commodious buildings were erected for the com-
fort and treatment of the insane. Patients
from all parts of the country, rich and poor,
were sent to the asylum. It was named after
John McLean, a generous man whose great de-
sire was to help the unfortunate. Doctor Luther
THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT 67
V. Bell, for whom the Bell School is named,
was the second superintendent. The asylum
has been moved to Waverley, and the beautiful
lawns, gardens, and terraces have been to a
great extent ground down by the tracks of the
Boston & Maine railroad.
"Ploughed Hill," "Convent Hill," or
" Mount Benedict," is now demolished. Those
who have had the pleasure of standing upon
its summit can never forget the magnificent
view from every side.
An unfortunate record is connected with this
hill.
In 1826 a convent was built here, to be used
as a boarding-school, under the supervision of
the Ursuline nuns. The nuns were a body
of religious women who had devoted their lives
to the care of the sick and the teaching of
girls. They were members of the Eoman Cath-
olic Church.
They occupied a house on Ploughed Hill,
and changed the name to Mount Benedict. The
convent, built of stone and brick, was finished
in 1828. "It was a four-story building, eighty
68 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
feet long, facing toward the east. A long flight
of steps led up to it from the street. Two
large wings were added later. It was the most
imposing structure of its kind in Massachu-
setts.
'^ The grounds were laid out in an attractive
manner. The southern slope was arranged in
three terraces, on which were reared vines, trees,
and shrubs. A driveway, shaded by handsome
trees, led up in a diagonal direction from the
southeast corner of the enclosure, and wound
around a circular flower-bed in front of the
house. The Bishop's lodge and the stable were
also upon the southern slope. On the northern
face of the hill were grass land, a vegetable
garden, and an orchard.
^^ The school flourished for seven years, but
many people complained because it was not open
to visitors as freely as public schools were,
and there was a feeling that the teaching tended
to make Roman Catholics of the Protestant
pupils.
" A Miss Eeed, the daughter of a respectable
family living in Somerville, became interested
THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT 69
in the work of the nuns. The more she learned
about them, the more fascinated she became
with them and their mode of life. Finally
she decided to become a Roman Catholic and
a nun. She made known her wishes to the
Bishop and the Superior of the convent, and
against the wishes of her parents entered the
convent, with the intention of becoming a nun.
^' A few months' trial showed her that she
had mistaken her calling; she did not like
the plain food, the hard couch, the difficult
work, and the routine of daily worship. She
felt that she must return to her home.
" Fearing that the nuns might try to per-
suade her to remain, or perhaps dreading to
say farewell to those who had treated her kindly,
or disliking to witness their disappointment
when told of her decision, she secretly climbed
over the fence and returned to her family and
to her early religion. Her escape created some
excitement at the time, but it soon died out.
" Some time after this, another event hap-
pened to excite the people in the neighborhood
of the convent.
70 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
^' One of the nuns, a Miss Harrison, who
had been a teacher of music there for several
years, became very nervous and partly insane.
She ran away from the convent and sought ad-
mission to the house of Mr. Cutter, who lived
opposite.
'' She told him she was tired of living shut
up in a convent, away from all her friends,
and wished never to return to it.
" She talked very calmly, and a Mr. and
Mrs. Runey came in and took her to Arlington,
to the parents of a former pupil. She did
not show any signs of insanity. The Bishop and
the Superior were told where she was, and
they induced her to go back to the convent,
and promised her that she might leave it again
whenever she wished. She asked the Runeys
and Cutters to visit her at the convent, and
if they did not see her at the end of ten days
she wished them to go to the convent and ask
for her.
'^ As she did not appear within the ten days,
they went to the convent and asked for her.
They were told that Miss Harrison was ill,
THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT 71
had no desire to see them, was perfectly sat-
isfied with her present life, and wished to re-
main in the institution.
^^Keports were circulated that a nun was
kept against her will, and that there were under-
ground cells where the nuns were shut up, and
that subterranean passages led from the convent
to the Bishop's lodge, and that there were
abuses too dreadful to tell.
'' Public indignation spread, handbills were
posted, and threats were uttered against the
institution. The Superior was a very haughty
person, and instead of meeting the people half-
way and showing them that everything was
perfectly open and correct, she met the Select-
men, who went in kindness to help her, very
coldly, and told them she would not permit any
search of the premises.
" On the night of August 4, 1834, at dusk,
little knots of men began to gather about the
vicinity of the convent grounds. At nine
o'clock the crowd had increased. A great part
were strangers to the residents, who knew
i'A THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
neither whence they came nor their object in
coming.
'' Some of the crowd started a bonfire on
land near the convent. This brought the fire
companies from Boston, and Engine Thirteen
came up the convent avenue. When it reached
the building, a volley of stones was fired, yells
were uttered, and an attempt was made to
batter down the doors. Finally, disregarding
the remonstrances of the Selectmen and the
entreaties of the Superior, the rioters forced
their way into the building, and for an hour
they ransacked the premises. Everything was
broken open and rifled. Pianos, harps, and
books were thrown from the windows. All
the symbols of worship were removed and des-
ecrated.
^' The frightened inmates of the institution,
numbering in all about ten nuns and forty-
seven pupils, sought refuge near the tombs, till
they were taken to places of shelter. The rioters
at last set fire to the building, and did not leave
the place till daylight.
" A few days later a meeting was held in
THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT 73
Faneuil Hall, and addresses were made by
prominent citizens, who condemned the outrage
in the strongest terms. On the fifteenth of the
month, Governor Davis offered a reward of
five hundred dollars for the discovery of the
perpetrators, and called upon all classes for
help. Although the better class of people de-
sired to have the rioters caught and punished,
the only one who was convicted was a boy of
seventeen, and he was set at liberty after an
imprisonment of seven montlis." ^^
For nearly fifty years the blackened ruins
stood as a memorial of the dark stain on the
honor and good government of Massachusetts.
The Koman Catholics have tried several times
to have the Legislature pass a bill compensating
them for the destruction of their property, but
their efforts never met with success.
" Walnut Tree Hill " is now '' College Hill.''
The Universalist denomination wished to erect
a college in the United States. Several desir-
able situations were considered, but the nearness
of College Hill to Boston and the gift of twenty
acres of land on its summit by Mr. Charles
74 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
Tufts secured the location of the College. It
began with three students in 1854. Hosea
Ballon Avas its first president.
Charles Tufts lived on the northerly side of
Washington Street, west of the Lowell Eailroad.
The house is still there.
The most interesting building to young people
in Tufts College is the Barnum Museum, which
was built in 1883 by the late P. T. Barnum.
He also gave a fund for the support and mainte-
nance of this museum. The College is indebted
to Mr. Barnum also for a large zoological col-
lection. It contains many skeletons and mounted
skins of animals. Among the latter is that of
Jumbo, the children's favorite elephant.
" Until within a few years the remains of
old forts and breastworks were visible; those
on Central Hill Park were dug away in 18Y8,
regardless of protests. On the southern slope
of Prospect Hill Revolutionary traces still re-
main — tradition says they are the old tent-
holes of 1775, or perhaps of the Burgoyne
prisoners." ^^ These have now [1903] been
dug away.
XIII
THE SCHOOLS
IisT the early days of the New England settle-
ment schools were few, but the children's edu-
cation was not neglected. The men and women
who had left a beloved country to struggle with
the hardships of a new and unknown land could
not be ignorant or illiterate.
There is an old story of a minister who
called on one of these courageous women and
found her at the washtub, rocking the baby's
cradle with her foot, and listening to her boy
who was reciting his Latin verbs.
Children were usually taught at home. There
were few school-books, and the Bible and other
religious books were as useful in teaching read-
ing as many of the books of the present day.
When the Indians sought larger hunting-
75
76 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
grounds, and peace was declared with England,
the attention of the people was directed to the
necessity of schoolhouses.
Schools were not free in colonial times. Each
family paid a certain sum toward the school,
in proportion to the number of children sent
to school.
At first the only schoolhouse in Somerville
was at the " N^eck," but some years later one
was built on Milk Row, on land adjoining
the present cemetery. It was a small school-
house, consisting of one room.
In 1814, seventeen pupils were enrolled. In
that year the trustees opened a summer school at
Winter Hill.
The schoolhouse near the cemetery was
destroyed by fire in 1817. In 1819, a new
building was erected on the spot where the
old one stood. It was of wood, the sides filled
in with brick, finished in a plain neat style,
with two coats of paint on the outside. The
new school cost seven hundred dollars.
The little children had to walk some distance
to attend school, for these were the limits of
THE SCHOOLS 77
the district " No. 3 " given by the school trus-
tees : —
" This district commences in Cambridge
Road, sweeps around Cambridge line, runs
across Milk Row by Isaac Tufts's house to
Winter Hill, by the house of Joseph Adams,
to Mystic River, down to the cluster of houses
near the entrance to Three-Pole Lane and over
to the place of beginning. It contains sixty-
one families and one hundred and six children
from four to fourteen years of age."
In this year a list of the holidays was given
out. They were as follows : Every Wednesday
and Saturday afternoon of each week; the
afternoon of the annual training in May ; four
days in general election week; commencement
day and the day following; the day of the
military review when held in Charlestown;
from Wednesday noon immediately preceding
the annual Thanksgiving to the Monday morn-
ing following; Christmas day.
Only twelve holidays in the whole year!
Five years later the list was increased by the
addition of '' The first Monday in June ; re-
78 THE STORY OF SOMEBVILLE
mainder of the week after Commencement ; the
Seventeenth of June ; Fourth of July ; and the
day next following the semi-annual visitation."
This gave twenty holidays during the entire
year. There is no mention of a summer vaca-
tion, and there was no ringing of bells for '' ^"0
school " on stormy days. With our new vaca-
tion schools we seem to be going back to the
customs of our ancestors.
In 1825, the Pound Primary School was built
on the corner of Broadway and Franklin
Street. It was so named because it was opposite
the Pound.
In 1843, the Lower Winter Hill Schoolhouse
was built at the corner of Broadway and Frank-
lin Street. This probably replaced the Pound^
Primary. This school is often called the Pres-
cott Schoolhouse. It is the one that was moved
to Beacon Street, in 1847.
The Upper Winter Hill School was built
in 1840, on the west side of Central Street,
near Broadway. This schoolhouse was moved
to the present site of the Prescott School in 1855.
In 1856, it was moved to Prospect Street and
THE UNION SCHOOL, BUILT IN 1840.
THE SCHOOLS 79
was called the Union School. In 1891 it was
discontinued as a school.
The Union School has been facetiously called
'^ The Itinerant Knowledge Box."
In 1836, a schoolhouse was built to accom-
modate those living near Prospect Hill, then
forming a part of the Milk Row District.
In 1839, the Prospect Hill Grammar School
was established, adjoining the Prospect Hill
Primary, in what is now Central Square. In
1818, it was called the '' Medford Street
School." It was used as a schoolhouse till 1861.
It is now in the possession of the Somerville
Water Committee, and is on the corner of Somer-
ville Avenue and Prospect Street.
In 1818, the present Prospect Hill School-
house was built. It accommodated two hundred
and sixty-four pupils and was opened December
25. This building contained four rooms at first,
but was enlarged by the addition of two rooms in
1865.
In 1813, the Walnut Hill Schoolhouse was
built on Broadway, near the foot of Walnut, or
College Hill. This school was started some
80 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
time before in a private house, and was taught
by a man in the Avinter and by a woman in the
simimer. ^' In 1854, Miss Susanna C. Kussell
was appointed teacher for the entire year, and
she continued in the position till the spring of
1867. Under her instruction pupils passed
through all the primary and grammar grades,
and were fitted for the High School/' In 1867,
this school was discontinued, but in 1868 it was
moved to Cedar Street, and called the " Cedar
Street School." It was enlarged in 1873, and
discontinued in 1898.
In 1846, the Franklin Schoolhouse was built,
on the corner of Milk Row and Kent Street.
This was a two-roomed building. Two rooms
were added in 1862. In 1898, the building of
the M. W. Carr School rendered the Franklin
School unnecessary for school purposes, and it
was torn down. It stood on a large tract of land
shaded by noble trees under whose sheltering
boughs hundreds of children enjoyed their
recesses. The spot by itself was a most de-
lightful one, but the whistling of the locomotives
in the rear, and the noise of horse-cars in front
TEE SCHOOLS 81
interfered sadly with recitations. The city has
wisely given the land for a public park.
In 18^9 the Milk Row Primary was set on
fire and entirely destroyed. It was not rebuilt,
and its site became a part of the cemetery.
The school report for 18-1:6-7 says: '^ On
December 25, 1846, a new school was opened
in the Prescott District. A suitable lot has
been purchased on Beacon Street, near Cam-
bridge Street, and the schoolhouse formerly oc-
cupied by the Prescott Grammar School was
moved upon it and refitted for the occupation
of the new occupants. It was called the Har-
vard Primary.'' It was enlarged in 1861 and
burned in 1871.
The Prescott Schoolhouse was burned in 1856.
It was a wooden building, containing two rooms.
A brick building, consisting of seven rooms, was
built on Pearl Street in 1857. This was des-
troyed by fire in 1866, and a brick building of
ten rooms and a large hall was erected in 1867.
It was named in honor of William Hickling
Prescott, the historian, who was born in Salem,
Mass., May 4, 1796, and who died January
82 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
28, 1859. He was the son of Judge William
Prescott, and grandson of Colonel William
Prescott, who commanded at Bunker Hill. He
was graduated from Harvard College with
honor, and intended to study law, but a great
misfortune obliged him to change his plans.
At a college dinner a student threw at random
a crust of bread. It struck young Prescott
in the left eye, severely injuring it. In time
the other eye became affected, and for years
he was unable to read. He was obliged to make
use of " the eyes of another." In wi'iting he
employed a writing-case made for the blind.
Under such difficulties he wrote the com-
prehensive and fascinating works, '^ The History
of Ferdinand and Isabella," " Conquest of
Mexico," ^' Conquest of Peru," '' Eeign of
Philip II.," and ^'Life of Charles V." A
foreign biographer says of him : " He was gay,
good-humored and manly ; most gentle and affec-
tionate to his family; kind and gracious to all
around him. Thus loving and beloved; happy
and bestowing happiness; he is honored and
lamented in death, and his name shall be held
THE SCHOOLS 83
in grateful remembrance in all future gen-
erations."
With his portrait before their eyes and his
name daily on their lips, what greater example,
humanly speaking, can young people have of
noble living and an heroic spirit that overcame
all obstacles, however gTeat might have been
the discouragements !
^' Had his family given only him to the
Kepublic it had been much ; but so long as the
sword, the ermine, and the pen are connected
with the story of American civilization, so long
shall the memory of three generations of Pres-
cotts be dear to the hearts of the American
people."
In 1871 the Edgerly School was built on
Cross Street. It contained four rooms. In
1882 four rooms were added; in 1892 four
more were found necessary. The school was
named in honor, of John S. Edgerly, who was
born in Meredith, N. H., Xov^mber 30, 1804.
In 1836 he removed to Somer^^ille. He was one
of the Selectmen for fourteen years, a member
84 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
of the School Committee, and one of the Over-
seers of the Poor. He died January 20, 1872.
In 1850, the Spring Hill Primary School
was established in Elm Place. This was a
one-room building. It was torn down in 1897,
to make room for the M. W. Carr School.
In 1851, a small schoolhonse was built on the
west side of Cherry Street, and was called the
Bell School, in honor of Doctor Luther V. Bell,
the first Chairman of the School Board. In
1867 it was moved to the rear of the Franklin
School. In 1871 the Harvard Primary School
was burned, and the Bell School was moved to
Beacon Street and renamed the Harvard Pri-
maiy School. The building was sold in 1899,
for sixty dollars, and is now used as a store.
In 1852, the first High School was built.
In 1872 the building was vacated, and has sinc«
been used as a City Hall. An addition to the
side and rear of the building was made in 1899.
In 1854 the Forster School on Sycamore Street
was built. It contained four schoolrooms. It
was partly burned in 1866. In 1867 the
present brick building was erected. It origi-
THE SCHOOLS 85
nally had eight rooms and a large hall, which
was used for exhibitions, town meetings, and
public entertainments. It was named aiter
Charles Forster, a philanthropic citizen of Som-
erville.
Charles Forster was born in Charlestown,
June 13, 1798. From 1845 to 1863 he lived
at the corner of Sycamore Street and Broadway.
He died in Charlesto^Ti, September 1, 1866.
" He occupied a place second to none in the
hearts and affections of the people of Somerville,
and left behind him a reputation that any man
might envy — the reputation of a man who.
by the purity of his life and character, his
sweetness and kindliness of disposition, his un-
ostentatious benevolence, the years of a long
life devoted to charity toward the poor and
suffering, had endeared himself to all who
knew him and grown deep into their hearts.''
In 1861, the Brastow Schoolhouse was built
near the junction of Medford Street and High-
land Avenue. It was a two-room building, and
was named for George O. Brastow, who was bom
in Wrentham, September 8, 1811. He came
86 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
to Somerville in 1838. He was one of the
Selectmen in 1845 and in 1867. He was a
member of the School Committee for ^yq years ;
a member of the General Court for six years;
the first Mayor of Somerville; one of the
founders of the Middlesex and Somerville horse
railroads. He died suddenly in Canandaigua,
K Y., November 20, 1878.
The site of the Brastow School is covered
by the Central Fire Station. The building waa
sold and is now used as a stable.
In 1866, the Lincoln Schoolhouse was built
on Elm Street. It contained four rooms. It
was named in honor of Charles S. Lincoln,
who was born in Walpole, N. H., April 20,
1826, and died in Somerville, April 4, 1901.
He came to Somerville in 1852, as Principal
of the Prospect Hill School, and afterward
served the city well in various ways as a member
of the School Committee ; trustee of the Public
Library; member of the General Court; a
member of the Board of Health; and Over-
seer of the Poor. This schoolhouse was moved
THE SCHOOLS 87
to Clarendon Hill in 1881, and was destroyed
by fire in 1881. It was rebuilt in 1885.
In 1868, the Bennett School was built on the
corner of Joy and Poplar Streets. It was a
four-room building. It was named in honor of
Clark Bennett, who was born in Londonderry,
Vt., November 3, 1810, and died in Somerville,
January 6, 1882. He was a member of the
Board of Aldermen for three years ; for eleven
years a member of the School Committee, a part
of the time its chainnan ; and town treasurer
for several years. The use of the building as
a school was discontinued in 1902.
In 1867, the Franklin District had more
pupils than could be accommodated in the
schools already established there, and a room
over a tin-shop was hired, to receive the over-
flow. The tin-shop was on the corner of Milk
Row and Park Street, and the school was called
the Park Street School. The room had been
originally used for a church, and in the little
dressing-rooms were the stained glass window-
panes which were put there when the room was
used for religious purposes. This school was
88 THE STORY Of SOMERVILLE
moved to the Franklin building in 1869. The
tin-shop was moved a few feet down Milk Row
and is still standing. It has a stairway on the
outside.
The Webster School was built on Webster
Avenue in 1868, and was named in honor of
Daniel Webster. His life, like Benjamin
Franklin's, is too well-known to be given here.
This building was destroyed by fire December
14, 1893.
The Morse School, on the corner of Summer
and Craigie Streets, was built in 1869. It
originally contained four rooms and a hall. In
1889 six rooms were added. It was named in
honor of Enoch R. Morse. He was born in
Attleboro, Mass., July 25, 1822. He was a
member of the School Committee for nine years,
served as Selectman, and was a member of the
State Legislature in 1876.
The High School, erected in 1852, was now
far too small for the number of yearly appli-
cants, and in 1871 a new building on Highland
Avenue was erected. It contained a large hall,
a chemical laboratory, two large schoolrooms,
THE SCHOOLS 89
and four recitation-rooms. The rooms were
changed in 1883, and further changes were
made in 1888.
Among the first church buildings was one
on Beech Street. It was practically a union
meeting-house for all denominations, but even-
tually became the Spring Hill Baptist Chapel.
It was purchased by the city in 1872, for a
schoolhouse. The price paid was -Q-ve thousand
dollars. The building had a long room, heated
by a furnace, and with inside blinds to the
windows. The chimney was in the rear. A
partition was put in, to make two schoolrooms,
and a large stove was placed in each room.
The stovepipe in the front room passed through
the partition and across the rear room and dress-
ing-room to the chimney. The building was
demolished in 1897 to make room for the M.
W. Carr School.
The Prospect Hill School had become far
too small for the demands upon it, and in 1874
the Luther V. Bell school was built. It con-
tains twelve schoolrooms.
Luther V. Bell was born in Chester, IN". H.,
90 TEE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
December 20, 1806. He died February 11,
1862. He was a prominent physician, Super-
intendent of the McLean Asylum, member of
the School Committee, member of the Executive
Council, and surgeon of the Eleventh Regiment
of Massachusetts Volunteers.
In 1880, the Highland School was built on
the corner of Highland Avenue and Grove
Street. It originally contained but eight rooms.
In 1890, another story was added, thus giving
four extra rooms.
In 1884, the Cummings School was built on
School Street. It has four rooms. This school
was named in honor of John Addison Cum-
mings. He was born in Nelson, !N". H., January
16, 1838, and died January 6, 1887. He was a
Lieutenant in the Sixth Regiment of the 'New
Hampshire Volunteers, and Major of the First
New Hampshire Cavalry. He came to Som-
erville in 1871. He was a member of the
Board of Aldermen and Mayor for four consec-
utive years.
In 1886, the Burns School on Cherry Street
was built of brick, with four schoolrooms. It
THE SCHOOLS 91
was named in honor of Mark F. Burns, who
was born in Milford, IST. H., May 24, 1841,
and died in Somerville, January 16, 1898.
He was a member of the Somerville Common
Council, a member of the Board of Aldermen,
a trustee of the Public Library, and Mayor of
the city for four successive years. In 1897 the
Burns School was enlarged by the addition
of four rooms.
In 1884 the Davis School was built on Tufts
Street. It contains four rooms. It was named
in honor of Joshua H. Davis, who was born at
Truro, JSTovember 4, 1814. He came to Somer-
ville in 1854, '^ and was for twenty-five years
identified with the educational interests of our
city.'' He was a member of the School Com-
mittee, Superintendent of Schools for twenty-
two years, and a member of the State Legisla-
ture for two years.
In 1886, the Bingham School was built on
Lowell Street. It contains four rooms. It was
named in honor of !N'orman Williams Bingham,
who was born in Derby, Vt., May 19, 1829.
He came to Somerville in 1869. He was a
92 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
member of the School Committee for fifteen
consecutive years.
In 1889, the Knapp School was built, on
Concord Square. In 1894, more rooms were
added, making thirteen in all. It was named
in honor of Oren S. Knapp. He was bom in
Boston, July 16, 1829, and died November 4,
1890. He came to Somerville in 1853, and was
elected Principal of the Prospect Hill School,
which position he retained for eleven years. He
was a member of the School Committee, and
for one year was Superintendent of Schools.
In 1891, the Charles G. Pope School was
built, with twelve schoolrooms. It was named
in honor of Charles G. Pope, who was born in
Hardwick, Mass., ^vember 18, 1840. In 1864,
he came to Somerville and became Prin-
cipal of the Forster School. He was a member
of the Common Council, member of the Gen-
eral Court, a trustee of the Public Library, a
trustee of Tufts College, and Mayor for three
successive years. He died April 24, 1893.
In 1891, the Jacob T. Glines School was
built. It had eight schoolrooms in the begin-
THE SCHOOLS 93
ning, and in 1896 five more were added. It
was named in honor of Jacob T. Glines, who was
born in Moultonborough, N. H., July 20, 1817,
and died August 3, 1882. He was a member
of the last Board of Selectmen; Chairman of
the first Board of Aldermen ; a member of the
General Court; and member of the City Gov-
ernment for several years.
In 1894, the Durell School was built on
Beacon Street, near Kent Street. It has four
rooms. It was named in honor of Kev. George
Wells Durell, who was born in Kennebunkport,
Me., and died August 25, 1895. He came to
Somerville in 1866, and became rector of Em-
manuel Parish. He was afterward rector of
St. Thomas' Parish. He was a member of the
School Committee for thirteen years.
In 1895, the English High School was built
on Highland Avenue, adjoining the former
High School. It had fourteen class-rooms, to
which others have been added, and it is still
too small. It contains chemical, physical, and
biological laboratories, a lecture-hall, a library,
four rooms for manual training in the base-
94 THE STOBY OF SOMERVILLE
ment, and other small rooms. The name of
the former High School was changed to the
Latin School on the completion of the English
High School.
In 1896, the William H. Hodgkins School
was built on Holland Street. It has twelve
rooms. It was named in honor of William H.
Hodgkins, who was born in Charlestown, Mass.,
June 9, 1840. He was Major in Company B,
Thirty-sixth Regiment of Massachusetts Volun-
teers. He came to Somerville after the war
was over. He was a member of the Common
Council for two years, and Mayor of the city
for four years. He was also a member of the
Senate. He was made Brevet Major for dis-
tinguished services at Fort Stedman.
In 1897, the Sanford Hanscom School was
completed. It is located on Webster Street, at
the corner of Rush Street. It is constructed
of red brick, with granite trimmings, and con-
tains six schoolrooms. It is named in honor
of Doctor Sanford Hanscom, who was born in
Albion, Me., January 28, 1841. He rendered
active service in the Civil War, was twenty
THE SCHOOLS 95
years a member of the School Committee, and
six years a Trustee of the Public Library.
'^ Through the generosity of tlie gentleman for
whom the school was named, the walls of the
hallways and schoolrooms are adorned with ap-
propriate pictures, which constantly teach to
the pupils lessons of patriotism or duty, and
appeal to the love of what is beautiful and
elevating.''
In 1898, the Martin W. Carr School was
erected on Beech Street, on the site of the old
Chapel. " It is the largest grammar school-
house in the city, and contains fifteen class-
rooms.'' It is well ventilated and well lighted,
each class-room having six large windows. It
is named in honor of Martin W. Carr, who was
bom at Easton, Mass., March 9, 1829, and died
in Somerville March 28, 1902. He was a direct
descendant of Eobert Carr, Governor of Khode
Island in 1692. Mr. Carr came to Somerville
in 1864, and served the city two years as a
member of the Common Council, and two years
as alderman. He was also a member of the
Water Board, a member of the School Com-
96 TEE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
mittee for seventeen years, and a director of the
Somerville Hospital. The stairways and halls
of the school are adorned with beautiful pic-
tures, the gift of Mr. Carr.
In 1899, the Albion A. Perry School was
erected on Washington Street. It is a brick
building and contains six class-rooms. It is
named in honor of Albion A. Perry, who was
born in Standish, Me., January 26, 1851. He
came to Somerville in 1869. He has been a
member of the School Committee, of the Com-
mon Council, and of the Board of Aldermen.
He was President of the Water Board for two
years. "In 1895 he was elected to the office
of Mayor, after one of the warmest political
contests ever held in this State; was reelected
in 1896 and 1897, and filled the office with
an ability that commanded the respect of every
one."
In 1901, the George L. Baxter School was
erected on Bolton Street. It contains six class-
rooms. It is named in honor of George L.
Baxter, who was born in Quincy, Mass., Octo-
THE SCHOOLS 97
ber 21, 1842. He has been Principal of the
Somerville High School for thirty-five years.
In the same year the Benjamin G. Brown
School was erected on Willow Avenue. It is
similar in construction to the Baxter School.
It is named in honor of Professor Benjamin G.
Brown, who was born in Marblehead, February
22 1837. He has been connected with Tufts
College as instructor and professor for forty
years. " He served upon the School Committee
of Somerville seventeen years and three months,
between 1872 and 1894. In this connection
he rendered valuable services to the city, his
education and training admirably fitting him
for the work. The excellence of our schools
may be in a large measure attributed to his
counsel and influence."
In 1901, the Jackson School, on the corner of
Poplar and Maple Streets, was demolished to
make room for a new twelve-room building. The
old Bennett School is discontinued and the new
building is known as the Clark Bennett School.
The schoolholise on Morrison Street was com-
pleted in 1903 and named in honor of Martha
98 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
Perry Lowe. Mrs. Lowe was born in Keene,
N. H., ]!^ovember 21, 1829, and died in Somer-
ville, May 10, 1902. Her husband, Charles
Lowe, had been a member of the School Com-
mittee, and she, as well as her husband, was
interested in the progress and welfare of the
schools. At the dedication of schoolhouses and
teachers' conventions in Somerville she was al-
ways present with a poem or a speech.
The Superintendents of Schools in Somer-
ville have been as follows: Eeverend George
H. Emerson, from 1857 to 1865; Oren S.
Knapp, 1865 to 1866; Joshua H. Davis, 1866
to 1888; Clarence E. Meleney, 1888 to 1893;
Gordon A. Southworth, the present Superinten-
dent.
It is impossible to read the history of our
schools without a strong feeling of respect and
admiration for those who have had charge of our
educational interests. Their courage, energy,
and thrift have been unequalled. IN'o other town
records such destruction from " the torch of
the incendiary," yet every building that rose
THE SCHOOLS 99
upon the ashes of its predecessor was superior
to the one it replaced.
We may smile at the perambulating school-
houses, but there was a principle underlying
all the plans of our ^' school committee men/'
viz., that nothing should be wasted that could
be utilized, and that the town's property is as
sacred as the private purse.
We have always been fortunate in one re-,
spect: that our public schools are so satisfac-
tory that private schools cannot succeed here.
Several have been started, but they have not
continued for any length of time.
There are two parochial schools in Somer-
ville, in St. Joseph's Parish, Union Square.
The school for girls was opened in 1880, and is
under the charge of the Sisters of IN'otre Dame.
There are, at present, seven hundred and fifty
pupils. The school for boys was opened in
1893. Eight hundred boys attend, and they are
taught by the Xaverian Brothers. The build-
ings were erected under the supervision of
Kev. C. T. McGrath, the pastor of St. Joseph's
Church. The schools are free, and are supported
by voluntary contributions.
l.ofC.
XIV
SEPAKATION FKOM CHARLESTOWN
March 3, 1842, the residents " Without the
Xeck " succeeded in obtaining the passage of
an act of separation approved by the Governor,
and eleven days afterward the inhabitants met
at the Prospect Hill Schoolhouse and elected
town officers as follows: Selectmen, Nathan
Tufts, John S. Edgerly, Caleb W. Leland,
Luther Mitchell, and Francis Bowman; Town
Clerk, Charles E. Oilman; Treasurer and Col-
lector, Edmund Tufts.
For many years the people in this part of
Charlestown had been dissatisfied with the
treatment they had received from those in au-
thority. The residents beyond the Neck had
paid their share of the taxes, but they had
received very little in return — five poor school-
100
SEPARATION FROM CIIARLESTOWN 101
houses, a cast-off fire-engine, and roads very
much in need of repair. When the citizens
could bear it no longer they petitioned the Leg-
islature to " set them off."
A committee was appointed to decide upon
a name for the new town, and Mr. Charles
Miller suggested '' Somerville." He thought it
was a pretty name, and at that time there was
no other Somerville in ^ew England. The
committee unanimously adopted the suggestion.
The first business of the town was to provide
good streets. As our soil was chiefly clay, and
our ledges slate, gravel was brought from other
places over the railroads to make firm roadbeds.
"When the town was incorporated, it con-
sisted chiefly of farms, brickyards, and marshes.
Some land in East Somerville had been lotted
and put on the market, but little, if any, else-
where. Soon, however, there was great activity
in real estate, so that by 1855 land valued in
1843 at only fifty or one hundred dollars an acre
had advanced to two or three thousand dollars an
acre, and some to ten thousand; and flourishing
settlements began, not only in East Somertdlle,
102 TEE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
but near Union Square and on Prospect, Spring,
and Winter Hills, each a little village of itself."
In 1892 the City celebrated the fiftieth anni-
versary of its incorporation as a separate town.
The Somerville Journal Company issued a Sou-
venir number with bits of history, poems, and
photographs of residents and of old houses.
There was a procession which required two
hours to pass a given point, with representations
of the leading industries. A mammoth tent
was erected on Central Hill, in which the lit-
erary exercises were to be held. A violent
thunder-storm arose just before the hour for
assembling, and the tent was demolished. Three
days later another was erected, and the original
programme was carried out. Speeches were de-
livered by Hon. George A. Bruce, Major Will-
iam H. Hodgkins, Eev. George W. Durell, and
others. Mrs. Martha Perry Lowe recited an
original poem, and Mrs. Bailey sang the " Star
Spangled Banner." The widow and daughter of
Charles Miller, who gave the city its name, were
invited, as guests of honor, to sit on the plat-
form.
SEPARATION FROM CHARLESTOWN 103
In fifty years " in the matter of growth,
Somerville's career has been remarkable, if not
phenomenal. In the whole sixty years of its
existence, the gain in population has averaged
1,000 per year. In 1842, the year of the town's
incorporation, there were not many more than
1,000 souls within its borders; the census of
1900 shows that we were then over 61,000 in
number. From a farming town whose fertile
acres were dotted here and there with houses,
and whose rangeways were traversed as much
by cattle and sheep as by people, we have grown
to be a compact community of 65,000 people,
11,000 dwellings, and ninety miles of streets."
[Mayor Glines.]
XV
COMPARES m THE CIVIL WAK
When- the Civil War occurred in 1860, Som-
erville was ready with her share of troops.
Among the companies which replied to Pres-
ident Lincoln's call were: The Somerville
Light Infantry, Company B, under command of
George O. Brastow; Company E, under com-
mand of Captain Ered K. Kinsley; Company
B, under command of William E. Kobinson.
In the cemetery on Somerville Avenue is a
monument, erected in 1863, commemorating the
valor of the men who died in the defence of
the Union. This is the first memorial in honor
of Union soldiers erected after the Civil War.
The inscription on the monument is as fol-
lows : —
104
COMPANIES IN THE CIVIL WAR 105
C. C. Walden, U. S. Navy. Lost in the Brig
Bainhridge.
Caleb Howard, 58th Mass. Sept. 30, 1861.
Mich'l Driscoll, U. S. Navy. Texas, Sept. 8,
1863.
Patrick Sheridan, 26th Mass. N. Orleans,
July 1, 1864.
Elias Manning, 22nd Mass. May 15, 1864.
Wm. Connellon, 28th Mass. Hospital, Md.,
June 12, 1864.
Capt. Willard Kinsley, 39th Mass. City
Point, April 2, 1865.
S. P. Kollins, 39th Mass. Poolesville, Nov.
22, 1862.
E. F. Keniston, 39th Mass. Somerville,
April 28, 1863.
Fred A. Glines, 39th Mass. Salisbury, Jan.
6, 1865.
David Gorham, 39th Mass. Prison, Dec. 10,
1864.
John E. Horton, 39th Mass. Prison, Jan. 6,
1865.
Geo. H. Hatch, 39th Mass. Prison, Feb. 1,
1865.
106 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
Chas. G. Jones, 39th Mass. Prison, Nov. 23,
1864.
David Kendrick, 39th Mass. Prison, March
10, 1865.
Eugene B. Hadley, 39th Mass. Petersburg,
Feb. 7, 1865.
Richard J. Hyde, 39th Mass. Prison, Aug.
13, 1864.
Francis J. Oliver, 39th Mass. Prison, Oct.
10, 1864.
James Moran, 39th Mass. Washington, Aug.
7, 1865.
Augustus Benze, 39th Mass. Utica, Sept. 6,
1864.
J. W. Whitmore, 39th Mass. Prison, Oct.,
1864.
Washington Lovett, 39th Mass. Prison, Sept.
8, 1864.
Robert T. Powers, 39th Mass. Wilderness,
May 7, 1864.
Wm. D. Palmer, 39th Mass. Wilderness,
May 7, 1864.
Samuel O. Felker, 39th Mass. Wilderness,
May 7, 1864.
THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT.
COMPANIES IN THE CIVIL WAB 107
Somerville Guard.
Entered U. S. Service for three years, 1862.
Geo. W. Ayers, 24th Mass. Dec, 24, 1864.
E. H. Kendall, 13th Mass. Dec. 1, 1863.
John W. Coffee, 26th Mass. April 19,
1865.
Edwin D. Cate, 1st Mass. Cav. Prison, Jan.
13, 1864.
L C. Whittemore, 18th Mass. Lincoln
Plant'n, Me., April 10, 1865.
Michael Clifford, 1st Mass. H. A. April 22, -
1865.
Lt. J. Kafferty, 9th Mass. Malvern Hill,
July 1, 1862.
M. Haseltine, 12th Mass.
J. Millen, 22d Mass. Gaines Mills, June 22,
1862.
J. McGuire, 9th Mass. Gaines Mills, June
27, 1862.
H. McGlone, 9th Mass. Malvern Hill, July
1, 1862.
A. E. Mitchell, 12th Mass. Bull Run, Aug.
19, 1862.
108 THE STORY OF SOMEEVILLE
^. Haseltine, 12th Mass.
Lt. W. Berry, 2 2d Mass. Antietam, Sept.
17, 1862.
C. Young, 29th Mass. Craney Island, Sept.
17, 1862.
E. McDonald, 21st Mass. Somerville, Sept.
6, 1862.
W. Blackwell, 99th N. Y. :N'orfolk, Oct. 12,
1862.
T. H. Pitman, 22d Mass. Annapolis, Feb.
27, 1863.
. K Davis, 31st Mass. Baton Rouge, Mar. 27,
1863.
A. G. Lovejoy, 2nd Mass. Batt'y. Baton
Ronge, Mar. 27, 1863.
J. W. Langley, Somerville, Jan. 10, 1863.
J. Ducey, 38th Mass. Port Hudson, May 27;
1863.
Sgt. I^. W. Wilson, 11th Mass. Gettysburg,
July 4, 1863.
F. McQuade, 38th Mass. Oct. 16, 1863.
Leonard F. Purington, 15th Mass. George-
town, July 22, 1865.
COMPANIES IN THE CIVIL WAR 109
Entered U. S. Service for nine months.
Sept. 19, 1862.
North Carolina.
Fred A. Galletly, 23d Mass. Aug. 5, 1864.
John Holland, 15th Mass. July, 1863.
James McLaughlin, 28th Mass. Dec, 1862,
John O'Brien, 12th :Nr. Y. Cav. Somerville,
1863.
Wm. McDonald, 21st Mass. Roanoke Island.
Henry McVey, U. S. :N'avy. Salisbury, July
31, 1864.
E. Franklin Hanaford. Bull Eun, July 21,
1861.
W. Frank Moore, Washington, July 31, 1861.
Lieut. Edward Brackett, 10th Me. Antietam,
Sept. 18, 1862.
Samuel G. Tompkins, New Bern, June 22.
1863.
N. Fletcher Nelson, 23d Mass. Eichmond,
June 11, 1864.
Lieut. T. J. Vande Sande, 115th N. Y. Ft.
Monroe, Sept. 3, 1864.
110 THE /STORY OF SOMERVILLE
Entered U. S. Service for three months,
April 19, 1861.
Washington, D. C, and Va.
*^ Their warfare is over.
They sleep well.''
Wm. Plant, 28th Mass. Fredericksburg,
Dec. 13, 1863.
Frank Doherty, 56th Mass. Spottsylvania,
May 12, 1864.
Lieut. W. W. Warden, 1st Mass. Cav. Kich-
mond. May 28, 1864.
Patrick McCarty, 16th Mass. Fair Oaks,
June 18, 1862.
Patrick Hayes, 5th Mass. Somerville, 1862.
Alonzo W. Temple. New Orleans, July 7,
1863.
Erected by the Somerville Light Infantry
with the balance of a fund generously contrib-
uted by their fellow citizens in aid of the
COMPANIES IN THE CIVIL WAR HI
company on entering the U. S. Service for three
months, April 19, 1861.
In memory of all from this town who have
fallen in the service of their country.
S. L. I.
Incorporated A. D. 1853.
XVI
THE EAILEOADS
In 1835, tJie first railroad through Somer-
ville was opened. It ran from Lowell to Boston.
The Fitchburg Railroad Company was in-
corporated in 1842, and the road connected
Charlestown and Waltham. ''Until 185Y it
crossed the Lowell at grade, but it was then
lowered, and the Lowell was raised and bridged
over it.''
In 1845, the Boston & Maine Railroad was
extended through Somerville to Boston.
'' In 1849, the Grand Junction Railroad was
planned, and was continued from the Eastern
and the Boston & Maine to the Fitchburg, and
afterward was extended across Cambridge and
the Charles River to the Albany Railroad."
In 1854, the Eastern Railroad was built,
112
THE RAILROADS 113
through Somerville, to Boston. These railroads,
except the Grand Junction, which is owned by
the Boston & Albany, are now under one system,
that of the Boston & Maine.
'' Previous to 1858, steam-cars and omnibuses,
or ^ hourlies,' were the only conveyances to Bos-
ton. In this year two lines of horse railroad
were opened into the town, one over Broadway
to Winter Hill, the other up Washington Street
to Union Square, then through Milk Street
[Somerville Avenue] and Elm Street to West
Somerville. They were built along the sides
of the streets, near the gutters, and were laid
with sleepers and a T-rail like those of a steam
road.
^' The second street railway in the world was
the Cambridge road, between Harvard Square,
Cambridge, and Bowdoin Square, Boston."
In 1880, the Charles River Railway Com-
pany built a street railway extending from
School Street through Cambridgeport to Boston,
and one on Beacon Street, from Boston to North
Avenue, Cambridge. The cars were all drawn
by horses, and for many years the earlier lines
114 THE STOBY OF SOMERVILLE
ran but two cars an hour. 'Now [1903] all the
cars are moved by electricity, and on Summer
Street, during the middle of the day, there are,
in one hour, four cars to Koxbury, two to Bow-
doin Square, and three to the Subway, in Bos-
ton. Earlier and later in the day, the cars run
more frequently.
In 1872, the country was visited by a great
affliction, called the epizootic, or horse disease.
Electric cars were not known then, and people
who lived at a distance from stores, schools, and
theatres, were obliged to remain at home. One
could walk with perfect safety in the middle
of any street in Boston. Business was almost
at a standstill. Somerville was an exception.
Wi'th five lines of steam-cars from different
parts of the city, the stopping of the horse-cars
was but a slight inconvenience.
XVII
LIBKAKIES
The first circulating library in Somerville
was started in a drug-store on the corner of
Somerville Avenue and Kent Street, about 1868.
Some years later, the Public Library was
started, with the money received by the city
from the dog tax. A small room in the back
part of the present city hall was engaged for
the purpose. Isaac Pitman was the librarian
for three years, giving his services without sal-
ary. Miss H. Augusta Adams was his first
assistant. The Library contained two thousand,
three hundred and eighty-four volumes. Seven
hundred and fifteen books had been presented
to the Library.
Miss Adams succeeded Mr. Pitman as libra-
rian. She was succeeded by John S. Hayes,
115
116 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
during whose term of office the library became
one of the foremost in the State.
Nothing else in our history has grown so
rapidly as the Library, and, apart from the
churches and schools, nothing is so dear to the
heart of the public. In contrast with its very
humble beginning we now have the beautiful
building, with all the modern conveniences and
comforts, one might say luxuries. A circula-
tion of ninety-three thousand volumes has in-
creased to one of nearly two million volumes
annually. This does not include the large num-
ber and variety of magazines and newspapers.
A few years ago, Mrs. Harriet M. Laughlin,
the daughter of Mr. Pitman, gave one thousand
dollars to the Library in memory of her father.
This is the only large sum given to the Library,
and it reflects great credit on our community
that it can start and maintain a Library, un-
aided, which compares more than favorably with
those of other cities of equal wealth.
The " Children's Eoom " is a favorite resort.
An assistant is always at hand to give aid to
the little ones who may need it. The room
LIBRARIES 117
is lined with bookcases, and the children arc
allowed to handle the books and make their own
selections.
Under the administration of Mr. Sam Walter
Foss many noted improvements in the Library
have been made. Each grammar school can be
supplied with a set of books, sufficient to give
one to each pupil. There are also different
Library stations throughout the city; and a
house-to-house delivery can be had upon the
payment of a small fee.
XVIII
THE CITY CHAETEE
'^ On April 14, 1871, the act establishing the
City of Somerville was approved and accepted
by the voters at a town meeting held for that
purpose on April 27. On December 4, the first
city election occurred, resulting in the choice of
George O. Brastow as Mayor, and of a Board of
Aldermen and Councilmen."
The city was divided into four wards. Erom
each ward there were chosen two aldermen,
four common councilmen, and three members
of the school committee.
" The most important measure that demanded
the attention of the first city government was
the abatement of the nuisance in that part of
Miller's Eiver which extended from the Boston
& Lowell Eailroad, at the Cambridge and Som-
erville line, to the rear of the Union Glasshouse,
118
THE CITY CHARTER 119
on Webster Avenue." This river received the
drainage from two slaughter-houses and several
factories, as well as house drainage, and the
odor from it was so bad that people living in
the vicinity could not sleep, and the buildings
near it were discolored by the offensive gases
which came from it. The cities of Cambridge
and Somerville united in their efforts and,
sharing the expense, caused the river to be filled
and a sewer to be constructed.
Under the first city government brick side-
walks were laid.
In 1875, Milk Street, formerly Milk Kow,
was renamed Somerville Avenue. This historic
road has on it many beautiful elms of unknown
age. They were in full vigor at the time of the
Revolution.
In 1875, the Broadway Park was laid out
It was formerly a marsh ^' so soft and deep that
a timber structure on piles was built to sustain
the curbing of the pond." It was a very expen-
sive piece of work for the city, and a great
affliction to the taxpayers for many years. Now
it is a beautiful park.
120 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
* In 1896, a portion of land near Washington
Street, called " Wyatt Pits," was purchased by
the city, laid out in lawns and walks, and named
" Lincoln Park."
Another spot favored by the children in Ward
Four, now Ward Six, was the pond called
Pine Island Pond, on the Dickinson estate, sit-
uated on Elm Street, between Charles and Moss-
land Streets. It was an artificial pond, with an
island in the centre, and on the island stood a
lonely pine-tree. This island was often used
as an illustration by the teacher of geography.
In winter the children found the pond a delight-
ful place for skating and sliding. The pond was
filled in 1900.
In 1902, the city purchased the Clarendon
Hill Ledge for a Public Park.
In 1893, the City Hospital on Crocker Street
was begun. Miss Martha R. Hunt gave a gen-
erous sum toward its establishment, and the
citizens contributed an equal amount.
XIX
THE NEW CHAETEK
In 1900, the City Charter was changed. The
Common Council was abolished; the city was
divided into seven wards, with two members
of the school committee to be chosen from each
ward.
The Mayors of Somerville to the present time
have been as follows : —
George 0. Brastow .
. 1872
-74
William H. Furber .
. 1874
-76
Austin Belknap . .
. 1876
-78
George A. Bruce . .
. 1878
-81
John A. Cummings .
. 1881
-85
Mark F. Burns . . .
. 1885
-89
Charles G. Pope . .
. 1889
-92
William H. Hodgkins
. 1892
-96
121
122 TEE STORY OF SOMEBVILLB
Albion A. Perry . . . 1896-98
Geo. O. Proctor . . . 1898-1900
Edward Glines .... 1900-
Mr. Glines is the present mayor > [1903]
XX
THE lA^DUSTRIES OF SOMEEVILLE
The industries of Somerville are many and
varied. In size and extent the Xorth Packing
& Provision Company stands first. In 1902, it
paid a tax amounting to more than twenty-eight
thousand dollars. The packing-house covers
thirteen acres of land, and is the most complete
one in the world. Its business is to supply
fresh and cured meats to all parts of the world.
It employs more than twelve hundred men.
The American Tube Works, for the manufac-
ture of brass tubing, began operation in Somer-
ville in 1851. It employs nearly a thousand
men, and pays an annual tax of five thousand
dollars. It is situated on Somerville Avenue.
The Fresh Pond Ice Company has a very
extensive business. It is located near Wash-
123
124 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
ington Street and the Fitchburg Eailroad. The
ice is brought in refrigerator cars from Brook-
line, :n^. H.
The Union Glass Company was organized in
1854. The works are situated on Webster Ave-
nue, near Union Square. Here are manufac-
tured lamp chimneys, gas globes, lamps, and a
great variety of cut glass and decorated glass-
ware. The firm employs about two hundred
people.
Brick making was one of the early indus-
tries of Somerville. The region below Union
Square is called ^' Brick Bottom," because of
the brick business once carried on there. In an-
other part of the town is a district called ^' The
Patch,'' which shows traces of the early works.
" The size of the brick was regulated by Charles
I., hence the name statute-bricks. The first
vessels which arrived at Salem had bricks
stowed under their hatches, which were doubt-
less used in the erection of some of the big
chimney-stacks that still exist there. Bricks are
more durable than stone. The sun-dried bricks
of Mneveh and Babylon are still in existence,
THE INDUSTRIES OF SOMERVILLE 125
while the Roman baths of Caracalla and Titus
have withstood the action of the elements far
better than the stone of the Colisemn or the
marble of the Forum." The only brickmaking
business now in Somerville is at Ten Hills
Farm, conducted by William A. Sanborn.
In 1874, the Sprague & Hathaway Portrait
Copying House was established in West Som-
erville. Here the business of framing pictures
is carried on quite extensively.
In 1881, the Derby & Kilmer Desk Company
was organized. A few years later the company
removed to Somerville. The works are situated
on Vernon Street, near the Somerville Railroad
Station. The company is now the Derby Desk
Company.
In 1821, the Middlesex Bleachery and Dye
Works was established. It employs a large
number of men. Some years ago one of the
buildings caught fire, and the principal of
one of the grammar schools and his pupils be-
came so interested in helping the people move
their possessions from the houses near by that
they forgot to start for school until it was too
126 THE STORY OF SOMEBVILLE
late to do so. Then the principal sent word that
there would be no school. The message was
unnecessary, for although the teachers were
present, the pupils were all at the fire.
Carpet cleaning, repairing of furniture, and
the remaking of mattresses is carried on at
Broadway, East Somerville.
William M. Armstrong conducts a large
cooperage business on Somerville Avenue.
On Elm Street and Somerville Avenue are
the carriage manufacturing establishments of
Leavitt & Henderson.
In the rear of the Bleachery on Someryille
Avenue is a distillery. New England rum is
made here by Daniel E. Chase & Company.
The manufacturing business of M. W. Carr
& Company, in West Somerville, is very exten-
sive and interesting. All kinds of jewelry,
badges, and other novelties are made and electro-
plated here.
The I. H. Brown Moulding Company occu-
pies the building at 289 Washington Street.
This firm makes mouldings, sashes, brackets,
THE INDUSTRIES OF SOMERVILLE 127
etc., but a special branch is the making of cab-
inets for schools and museums.
In 1855, John P. Squire bought a tract of
land on Miller's Kiver, a part of it in East
Cambridge and a part in Somervalle, and
started a pork-packing business. The business
has increased greatly, and now the company
known as John P. Squire & Company ranks
third in the United States.
There are many other industries in Somer-
ville, but mention is made here of only the
oldest or the most extensive ones.
XXI
emi:n'ent eesidents
SoMERviLLE has been the home of many dis-
tinguished persons, — artists, musicians, and
authors.
Among musicians are: Mrs. Walter C.
Bailey, Miss Gertrude Edmands, Miss Annie
Lord (Mrs. S. Henry Hooper), Mrs. H. M.
Smith, Miss Evangeline Houghton (Mrs. Alex-
ander Crerar), Miss Kuby Cutter, Laurence E.
Brine, S. Henry Hadley, for many years teacher
of music in the schools, and his sons, Henry K.
Hadley and Arthur Hadley.
There are many others in the rising genera-
tion who bid fair to win fame for themselves
as well as for our city. Among the latter are :
Albert A. Densmore and Miss Eleonora M.
Bragdon. Both have unusual voices, and are
ranked among professionals.
128
EMINENT RESIDENTS 129
Among authors and writers who have lived
in Somerville are : —
Elbridge S. Brooks, the children's friend, who
wrote such charming stories as '^ In Leisler's
Times," ^'Century Book of Famous Americans,"
" Historic Boys," '' Historic Girls," and many
others.
His daughter. Miss Geraldine Brooks, who
has written '' Dames and Daughters of the
Young Republic."
Sam Walter Foss, whose verses are attractive
to old and young alike, and who has given us
" Back Country Poems," " Whiffs from Wild
Meadows," " Dreams in Homespun," and other
books.
Miss Anna C. Brackett, for many years a
contributor to the leading magazines.
Gordon A. Southworth, author of a series
of Arithmetics, and also, with the assistance
of the late Farley Goddard, of Harvard Univer-
sity, author of some text-books on language,
" First Lessons in Language," and ^' Elements
of Composition and Grammar." All these
books are used in our schools, and are help-
130 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
fill to the teacher and interesting to the pupil.
Mr. Southworth was born in Vermont. He has
tanght in 'New Hampshire, and in Maiden, and
for twenty years was principal of the Prescott
School. In 1893 he was elected to the office
of Superintendent of the Somerville schools.
Martha Perry Lowe, author of ^' The Olive
and the Pine," the '^ Memoir of Charles Lowe,"
and other books.
Douglas Frazar, author of " Perseverance Is-
land," '' Log of the Maryland," etc.
Mrs. E'ancy T. Munroe, a constant contribu-
tor to the press and author of occasional poems.
Isaac P. Shepard, a writer of poems.
Frank M. Hawes, author of '^ Poems."
Wyzeman Marshall, writer of prose and
poetry.
Edwin D. Sibley, author of '' Stillman Gott."
Harold C. Bailey, author of '^ My Lady of
Orange " and " Karl of Erbach."
Charles H. Taylor, manager of the Boston
Globe, and former editor and founder of the
American Homes Magazine — the first ten-cent
EMINENT RESIDENTS 131
magazine in this country. The office was burned
in the Boston fire of 1872.
Kobert Luce, journalist and lecturer, author
of "Electric Railways," ''Writing for the
Press," and '' Going Abroad ? "
William H. Hills, journalist, publisher, and
editor of The Writer.
Albert E. Winship, lecturer, author, and edi-
tor of the Journal of Education. Mr. Winship
has written many educational works.
Edwin M. Bacon, author of "• King's Diction-
ary of Boston," and of several other books of
like interest.
M. J. Canavan, author of " Ben Comee " and
other books for boys.
Charles D. Elliot, author of " Somerville's
History " and lecturer on historical subjects ;
former president of the Somerville Historical
Society.
Lewis C. Flanagan, author of "Essays in
Poetry and Prose."
George Russell Jackson, originator of the
"' Pencillings " column in the Somerville Jour-
nal, and a contributor to the leading magazines.
132 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
Mrs. E. A. Bacon, editor of the Ladies' Re-
pository.
Mrs. Mary A. Pillsbury, author of '' The
Legend of the Old Mill/' and other poems.
Miss Helen J. Sanborn, author of a book on
Nicaragua.
Mrs. Barbara ~^. Galpin, author of '' In For-
eign Lands " and '' History of Somerville Jour-
nalism."
George W. D'Vys, novelist and verse-writer,
author of ^' A Life's Sacrifice," ^^ Dr. Fanny
Evans," ^' Jean O'Connell," and other stories.
C. W. Willis {'' Allan Eric "), author of '' A
Yankee Crusoe," and other books.
Dr. Edward C. Booth is an authority on
local history, and wrote the chapter on Somer-
ville in the Middlesex County history.
John S. Hayes wrote much about local his-
tory, and also published a pamphlet, " A Souve-
nir of Winter HilL"
J. T. Trowbridge, author of " Cudjo's Cave "
and other novels once lived in Somerville.
At the jimction of Broadway and Main
Street stands a house which is supposed to have
* EMINENT REtiUJENT."^ 133
been built in 1805. Edward Everett, the fa-
mous preacher and writer, lived here between
1826 and 1830.
There have been many other literary folk in
Somerville, but the limited scope of this work
will not permit an extended list. A little inci-
dent, however, may be interesting to the young.
When Rev. Mr. Durell was conducting
an examination in the Prospect Hill Grammar
School, he noticed that two little girls in the
graduating class were uncommonly bright. He
was so much impressed by their recitation that
he asked their names, and was told that they
were sisters, and that their name was Saxe.
Then he asked the name of the father, and was
pleased to hear that it was John G. Saxe, the
well-known writer of humorous verse, who, wish-
ing to be near Boston for a while, had taken a
house in Somerville, and sent his children to
the public school.
The dearest person to the child mind and
child heart was the heroine of " Mary Had a
Little Lamb." Everybody knows the story of
Mary and her little lamb; but not every one
134 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
knows that Mary E. Sawyer, who was born near
Worcester, Mass., was the heroine of the poem..
When Mary was a little girl she found a
new-bom lamb nearly dead with hunger and
cold. She tenderly nursed it back to life, and
became devotedly attached to her gentle charge.
The lamb was her constant companion and play-
mate, and was to her what a doll is to most
children. For hours she would dress her lamb
and '' make believe " it was her baby. One
day her brother suggested that she take her
lamb to school with her. The thought so de-
lighted Mary that she started earlier than usual
for the schoolhouse, reached there before the
other scholars, and put the little lamb under
her seat, where it lay contentedly.
When Mary's turn came for her recitation the
lamb ran do^vn the aisle after her, to the intense
delight of the scholars and the surprise of the
teacher. The lamb was put outside, and it
waited on the door-step for Mary and followed
her home. A young man named John Roulston
chanced to be a visitor at the school, and the
pathetic incident led him to compose the famous
EMINENT RESIDENTS 135
stanzas, which he presented to the owner of the
lamb. Some years afterward Miss Mary Sawyer
was married to Mr. Cohimbus Tyler.
When the lamb was old enough to shear,
Mary's mother knit her two pairs of stockings
of the wool; and Mrs. Tyler kept these stock-
ings until she was eighty years old. When the
Old South Church of Boston was raising money,
she unravelled a pair of the stockings, and
wound the yarn on small cards, upon which she
wrote her autograph ; and these cards were sold
for upward of $100. Mrs. Tyler died in Decem-
ber, 1889.
Mr, and Mrs. Columbus Tyler built a beauti-
ful house on Central Street, which is now the
parsonage of the Unitarian Church. Mrs.
Tyler loved all children and all who knew her
loved her.
Tribute should be paid to those who by their
heroism have saved lives in the face of certain
death.
Captain Francis M. Howes, the Commodore of
the line of steamers controlled by the Merchants
136 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
and Miners Transportation Company, has saved
fifteen crews from drowning.
Captain Alfred Sorensen has received many
medals in recent years for the bravery displayed
in saving the lives of seamen. His latest medal
came from the Massachusetts Humane Society
for saving the lives of seventeen men, the crew
of a tug which struck on Mt. Desert Kock,
December 15, 1902.
XXII
THE CHUKCHES
In 1844, the First Congregational [Unita-
rian] Society was organized, and the corner-
stone of a church was laid near the site of the
English High School. This society was started
in 1842, by Miss Elizabeth P. Whittredge, a
teacher in the public schools, who had devoted
her Sunday mornings to giving religious in-
struction to the children in her school. Rev.
Richard M. Hodges, of Cambridge, preached the
first sermon.
The first church was dedicated in 1845. This
church was destroyed by fire, and a new one
was built on its site in 1854. This church
also was burned, and a third one was built in
January, 1869. In September, 18Y0, during
a fierce gale, this building was unroofed. A
137
138 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
lady who happened to be looking in that direc-
tion said that the wind lifted the roof as if it
were a blanket^ and dropped it on the ground.
At that time many chimneys were blown down
and trees were uprooted on Summer Street, but
no other damage was done. In 1893, the third
building, with the land about it, was sold to
the city for forty-five thousand dollars. Land
was purchased on the opposite side of High-
land Avenue, and the present church was
erected, at a cost of eighty thousand dollars.
It is built of stone, and is more commodious
than the old building. In the rear, but con-
nected with the church, is a smaller building,
which has a Hall and a Sunday-School room,
besides smaller rooms. The Hall is used for
the meetings of the Heptorean Club and other
entertainments. The different pastors have
been : —
Eev. John T. Sargent, Eev. Augustus K.
Pope, Kev. Charles Lowe, Rev. Henry H.
Barber, Eev. John S. Thomson, and the pres-
ent incumbent, Eev. William H. Pierson.
The parsonage on Central Street is the gift
THE CHURCUES 139
of Columbus Tyler, who was always a generous
friend of the church.
The Second Unitarian Church was organized
in 1891 on Elm Street, West Somerville. The
pastor in charge is Kev. Albert H. Spence, Jr.
In 1852, thirty persons organized the First
Baptist Church. The services were held in a
chapel on Beech Street, which was afterward
sold to the city, to be used as a schoolhouse.
In 1873, a new church was erected on Behnont
Street. This church has had nine pastors in
forty years. The present pastor is Kev. Kichard
Otis Sherwood.
In 1890 - 91, the vestry of this church was
used as a schoolroom for the three higher grades
of the Morse School.
The Perkins Street Baptist Church, on Cross
Street, was organized in 1845. In 1864, the
building was enlarged, and two years later it
was destroyed by fire. A new building soon
took the place of the old one, and in 1873 was
still further enlarged. In 1892, the congre-
gation divided, a part remaining in the church
on Perkins Street, and a part building another
140 THE STOBY OF SOMEBVILLE
edifice on Cross Street, but retaining the old
name. In 1902, this building was partially
burned, but in a few weeks it was ready for
occupancy again. The present pastor is Rev.
John K. Gow.
In 1854, the First Universalist Church was
organized. The present building at the corner
of Cross and Tufts Streets was built in 1869.
In forty-three years this church has had only
seven pastors. The present pastor is Rev. H.
D. Maxwell.
In 1855, the First Methodist Episcopal So-
ciety in Somerville was started by a few persons,
in Franklin Hall, near Union Square, under
the charge of Rev. Rufus Gerrish. The present
building on Bow Street was erected in 1874.
It has the largest auditorium in the city, and
the graduating exercises of the public schools
are held here. The present pastor is Rev.
George Skene.
Emmanuel Parish was organized in 1862,
in a small hall over a tin-shop at the corner of
Somerville Avenue and Park Street. Rev. N.
G. Allen had charge of the first services.
THE CHURCHES 141
The hall was afterward used as a school. In
three instances in Somerville schools have fol-
lowed churches.
In 1866, the building on the corner of Cen-
tral and Summer Streets was occupied. The
present rector is Rev. Nathan K. Bishop, who
was installed in 1877.
In August, 1863, the Sunday-School con-
nected with the Broadway Congregational
Church was formed. In 1864, the church was
organized, and a new building was dedicated,
at the corner of Broadway and Central Street.
In 1866, the building was destroyed by fire.
In 1868, a new chapel was built on Sycamore
Street. In 1871, another building Avas erected
on the site of the first one. The church members
divided in 1879. After the division the Broad-
way Congregational Church went to Sycamore
Street. The present pastor is Rev. H. H'.
Leavitt.
The other members of the church now
constitute the Winter Hill Congregational
Church. The present pastor is Rev. Charles
L. Noyes, who is an active member of the Asso-
142 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
ciated Charities and very much interested in
the Stamp Saving System which has been re-
cently introduced into the schools. The church
has a fine stone building on the corner of Broad-
way and Central Street.
The Flint Street Methodist Church was or-
ganized in 1868, in the Tufts Street Chapel,
then occupied as a place of worship by St.
Thomas Parish. In July, 1871, a chapel was
built on Flint Street, which served as a place
of worship until the present building was
erected. The pastor now is Rev. Philip Frick.
The Church of St. Thomas was built on
Somerville Avenue in 1870, under the rector-
ship of Rev. George W. Durell, formerly rector
of Emmanuel parish. The present rector is
Rev. Silas B. Duffield.
The parish of St. James was organized as
a Mission Chapel in 1875. The building was
erected on IN'ewbury Street, in 1876. In 1885,
the building was moved to the corner of Broad-
way and Clarendon Avenue.
The Park Avenue Methodist Episcopal
Church was'formed in 1872, under the charge of
THE CHURCHES 143
Rev. W. F. Lacoimt. In 1873, a chapel was
built, and the first pastor. Rev. A. E. Winship,
was installed. The present building was dedi-
cated in 1883. It is situated on the corner of
Ehn Street and Park Avenue. The present
pastor is Rev. Arthur Page Sharp.
The Broadway Methodist Church was formed
in 1873, through the efforts of Rev. J. Benson
Hamilton, pastor of the Flint Street Church.
After some time the one-story brick building
at the corner of Broadway and Marshall Street
was erected by the society, and in this services
were held until the new church building was
erected on Broadway, in 1882. Within a few
years this building has been removed to Grant
Street, and enlarged and improved. The present
pastor is Rev. George H. Clarke.
In 1874, the West Somerville Congregational
Society was organized. In 1876, the present
building was dedicated. The first pastor was
Rev. C. L. Mills. Rev. E. E. Braithwaite is
now pastor in charge. It is called the Day
Street Church.
The West Somerville Baptist Church was
144 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
formed in 1874. The first settled pastor was
Rev. J. R. Haskins. The present church was
completed in 1890. The pastor now is Rev J.
Vanor Garton.
September 15, 1853, the First Orthodox Con-
gregational Society was legally organized. The
church edifice on Franklin Street was dedicated
in 1855. In 1867, this edifice was burned, and
the present building on the original site was
built in 1868. Rev. Benjamin Judkins was
the first pastor. The present pastor is Rev.
W. Sherman Thompson.
The Second Advent Society began holding
meetings in 1878, and in 1879 a chapel was
built on Bow Street at the junction of Somer-
ville Avenue. Elder Charles Goodrich was the
first pastor. In 1887, the society was incor-
porated, and the present chapel was built on
Putnam Street. Rev. Charles W. Dockham is
now the pastor.
In 1879, the Winter Hill Universalist Church
was organized. In 1888, a church was built on
the corner of Evergreen Avenue and Thurston
THE CHURCHES 145
Street. The present pastor is Eev. Alonzo
Francis Gray, formerly of Nashua.
In 1886, the Union Square Presbyterian
Church was organized. The present church
was purchased from the Congregational Society.
It is situated on Warren Avenue. Kev. Lewis
V. Price has recently resigned the pastorate.
In 1881, the Third Universalist Church was
organized in West Somerville. In 1884, the
church on the corner of Elm and Morrison
Streets was completed. The present pastor is
Eev. William Couden.
The East Somerville Baptist Church was
organized in 1890. The building is on Perkins
Street, opposite Pinckney Street. The first
pastor was Kev. C.^ L. Khoades. Eev. F. S.
Boody, of Agawam, has just accepted a call
to this church.
The Eandall Memorial Baptist Church occu-
pies an edifice on New Cross Street. This
church has had six pastors since 1873. The
present pastor is Eev. Welbee Butterfield.
The Highland Congregational Church was
organized in 1894, In 1895, the new building
146 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
on Highland Avenue was dedicated. The church
has had but one pastor, Rev. George S. K.
Anderson.
In 1874, the Prospect Hill Congregational
Church was organized. In 1876, the building
on Warren Avenue was dedicated. In 1889, the
handsome brick building on Bow Street was ded-
icated. This church has had but three pastors:
Eev. A. E. Winship, Rev. Edward S. Tead, and
Rev. Richard C. Woodbridge.
The Union Square Baptist Church holds its
services in an attractive building on Walnut
Street. This building was erected in 1896.
Rev. C. S. Scott was the first pastor. Rev.
W. B. C. Merry has just resigned the pastorate.
In 1881, the Winter Hill Baptist Church was
organized. In fifteen years this church has had
fifteen pastors. The first one was Rev. L. H.
Abrams. Rev. W. J. Day resigned the pastorate
June 7, 1903.
In 1881, St. Ann's Church was dedicated
and Rev. John R. Galvin was installed as pas-
tor. In 1894, the church was burned, but two
months later the building was ready again for
THE CHURCHES 147
divine service. St. Ann's now has a new build-
ing, one of the finest in the city.
In 1869, the Parish of St. Joseph was or-
ganized. For two years the congregation wor-
shipped in Hawkins HalL The present bnikl-
ing was dedicated in 1874. Eev. C. T. McGrath
is the pastor.
The Parish of St. Catharine was organized
in 1891, and the chapel on Summer Street
was dedicated in 1892. The pastor is Rev.
James J. O'Brien, the son of the late Mayor
Hugh O'Brien, of Boston.
The parsonage connected with this church was
once the residence of Isaac Pitman, our first
Librarian. A spacious greenhouse covered the
present lawn. The flowers were sent to brighten
many homes in Somerville and other places.
Mr. and Mrs. Pitman were the centre of a
cultivated and literary circle. John G. Whit-
tier was a constant visitor. Lucy Larcom gave
a series of talks on literature to the favored
few. Men and women eminent in Cambridge
and Boston frequently met there. Mrs. Har-
riet M, Laughlin, the daughter, was a member
148 THE STORY OF SOMERVILLE
of the School Committee for two years. Mrs.
Pitman inherited the property from her brother,
Charles Minot. In his will he left a fortune
to a young friend. On the death of this young
man the money became the property of Harvard
College. For this reason the family received
many privileges from the University.
XXIII
NEWSPAPERS
Since 1861, fifteen newspapers have been
published in Somerville. The two which had
the longest existence were the Somerville Jour-
nal and the Somerville Citizen.
The Somerville Citizen was started in 1888.
Its office was in the Stickney Building on Pearl
Street; later, it was moved to Oilman Square.
It was an excellent paper, representing high
ideals, and giving to its readers clean and in-
teresting matter. It was united with the Som-
erville Journal in 1901.
The first number of the Somerville Journxil
was printed December 3, 1870. It represents
all local interests, and is a welcome visitor in
every household. The Woman's Page, con-
ducted by Mrs. Barbara N. Galpin, contains
149
150 THE STORY OF SOMEBVILLE
notices of women's clubs, household hints, fash-
ions, and whatever may be interesting to women.
The office is in the brick building, owned by the
Somerville Journal Company, at 8 Walnut
Street.
The Somerville Reporter has recently come
under the management of Wesley P. Maynard.
It is published in West Somerville.
XXIV
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Somerville Historical Society was or-
ganized in 1897, with Hon. Geo. A. Bruce as
its first president. It was incorporated in 1898,
with Charles D. Elliot as president. Its present
president is John E. Ayer.
The headquarters are at the old Tufts home-
stead, No. 78 Sycamore Street. Stated meet-
ings are held four times a year, and there are
semi-monthly meetings, when essays and talks
are given on historical subjects.
161
XXV
GEEAT STOEMS
Besides the storm that unroofed the Unita-
rian Chnrch, Somerville has suffered from two
other visitations of nature.
A writer in the Radiator, the High School
paper, gives a graphic description of the storm
of January 17, 1867. The High School was in
the building now used as a City Hall. The
upper part was the High School, and the lower
room, a Grammar School.
It began to snow early in the morning, and
the flakes were so fine and thick that the houses
on one side of the street were hardly visible
from the other side. Mr. Babcock, the Prin-
cipal of the High School, commended the pupils
for their punctuality and attendance on such
a day.
152
GREAT STORMS 153
Before the hour for closing the school, all
but three of the children had been sent for.
Twelve Grammar School children shared their
lunch with the High School girls. The son of
a neighbor brought provisions, and he, with
two other neighbors and the janitor, kept guard
during the night. Two teachers remained also.
The boys and men occupied one room, and the
girls another. Wraps were the only bed cover-
ings, boots and iimbrellas the only pillows. The
next morning all but three of the children were
taken away in sleighs, but owing to the high
drifts many were unable to reach their homes,
and w^ere obliged to stop at the nearest house.
The three who were left feared they might have
to spend another night in the building. When
the snow-plough came, the three girls followed
it until it " stuck " in a drift. They went into
the nearest house till a sleigh came for them.
One of the girls lived on Belmont "Street, the
other two on Vine Street. They rode back
past the High School to Union Square, then to
Belmont Street, where they all expected to
pass the night. No paths were shovelled, and
154 THE STORY OF SOMEBVILLE
they stopped twice at different houses. In some
places the drifts were from six to eight feet
high. After supper the brother of the young
girls who lived on Vine Street called for them.
A path had been made across the field from
Park Street. In this way, marching in single
file, they reached their home without difficulty.
At the Spring Hill School there were only
primary pupils, and when the hour for dismissal
arrived anxious parents called for their children
and were dismayed to see a white wall several
feet high against the schoolhouse door. One
energetic parent drove a grocer's team under
one of the windows, and the little ones were
handed out to him, and transferred to the arms
of their parents. This happened before the
days of the ^' Ko School " signal.
July 30, 1887, a small cyclone, a few feet in
width, appeared in Somerville. It did little
damage, except in one locality. Its greatest
strength was exercised in its passage between
Mrs. Frost's house and Mr. Raymond's house,
on Laurel Street. It seized a large poplar-tree,
the tallest one on the place, wrenched it from
GREAT STORMS 155
its place, and flung it into the street. The roots
of the fallen tree were twelve or fourteen feet
long. It was so great a curiosity that photo-
graphs of it were made and distributed among
friends.
" A city set upon the hills,
For all to see, like ancient Rome ;
The one our classic memory thrills,
The other speaks to us of home.
" The one is old, and sad, and gray.
The other is so bright and young.
It seems as if 'twas in a day
Our city into being sprung.
'<It stretches north, and east, and west, —
The world is lying at our feet ;
Each one believes his view the best,
And makes the harmony complete."
— Martha Perry Lowe,
KEFEKEIvrCES
1. Potter's History of ^N'arragansett.
2. Moore's Puritans and Pilgrims.
3. Moore's Puritans and Pilgrims.
4. Frothingham's History of Charlesto^vn.
5. Drake's History of Middlesex County.
6. Davis, 58.
7. Somerville Past and Present.
8. Young, 177.
9. Somerville Past and Present.
10. Somerville Past and Present.
11. Somerville Past and Present.
12. Drake's History of Middlesex County.
13. Froth ingli am.
14. Frothingham.
15. Somerville Past and Present.
16. Somerville Past and Present.
17. Drake's Old Landmarks.
18. Drake's Old Landmarks.
166
REFERENCES 157
19. Drake's Old Landmarks.
20. Somerville Past and Present.
21. Drake's History of Middlesex County.
22. Somerville Past and Present.
23. Drake's Old Landmarks.
24. Drake's History of Middlesex County.
25. Drake's Old Landmarks.
26. Drake's Old Landmarks.
27. Somerville Past and Present.
28. Drake's Old Landmarks.
29. Drake's Old Landmarks.
30. Drake's Old Landmarks.
31. Somerville Past and Present.
32. Drake's Old Landmarks.
33. Somerville Past and Present.
34. General Piedesel's Memoirs.
35. Drake's History of Middlesex County.
36. Somerville Past and Present.
THE END.
1903
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